"We make Idols of our concepts, but Wisdom is born of Wonder."

                                                                                                                                   ~~~ ST. GREGORY THE GREAT ~~~

St. Gregory the Great, pope & doctor 

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊  

1 Corinthians 4:6b-15

Learn by this example

Not to believe yourselves superior by siding with one against the other. How then are you more than the others? What have you that you have not received? And if you received it, why are you proud, as if you did not receive it?

Comforted Christians and harassed apostles

 So, then, you are already rich and satisfied, and feel like kings without us! I wish you really were kings, so that we might enjoy the kingship with you!

 It seems to me that God has placed us, the apostles, in the last place, as if condemned to death, and as spectacles for the whole world, for the angels as well as for mortals.

We are fools for Christ, while you show forth the wisdom of Christ. We are weak, you are strong. You are honored, while we are despised. Until now we hunger and thirst, we are poorly clothed and badly treated, while moving from place to place.

We labor, working with our hands. People insult us and we bless them, they persecute us and we endure everything; they speak evil against us, and ours are works of peace. We have become like the scum of the earth, like the garbage of humankind until now.

 I do not write this to shame you, but to warn you as very dear children. Because even though you may have ten thousand guardians in the Christian life, you have only one father; and it was I who gave you life in Christ through the Gospel.

 

Ps 145:17-18, 19-20, 21

The Lord is near to all who call upon him.

 

 ＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊   

Luke 6:1-5

 One Sabbath Jesus was going through the corn fields and his disciples began to pick heads of grain crushing them in their hands for food.   Some of the Pharisees asked them, “Why do you do what is forbidden on the Sabbath?”

Then Jesus spoke, “Have you never read what David did when he and his men were hungry?”  He entered the house of God, took and ate the bread of the offering and even gave some to his men, though only priests are allowed to eat that bread.” And Jesus added, “The Son of Man is Lord and rules over the sabbath.”

 

 Gospel Reflection：

Missing the Forest for the Trees

I once read an anecdote about a family. It was the time Dr. Benjamin Spoke’s book Baby and Child Care was the ultimate word on child care. Like many mothers of that time, this first-time mother in the story also had her copy of the book.

One day, her new-born baby was crying relentlessly. The baby had slept well and was fed well on waking. Why does it cry again? The mother turned to the book to find out. And the baby went on crying. All along, the grandmother was watching the scene. Finally losing patience, the grandmother shouted at the mother: “For heaven’s sake, drop the book and pick up the child.”

The Pharisees in today’s gospel are like the first-time mother in the story. Their heads are totally buried in the Law that they fail to look up at the disciples and see their human need. By focusing on the minutiae, they missed the larger picture.

 

"We make Idols of our concepts, but Wisdom is born of Wonder."

                                          ~~~ ST. GREGORY THE GREAT ~~~