‘The Son of Man’ is master of the Sabbath.

Rule of love is taking over from the rule of law,

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊   

1 Corinthians 5:1-8

 You have become news

With a case of im­morality, and such a case that is not even found among pagans. Yes, one of you has taken as wife his own stepmother.  And you feel proud! Should you not be in mourning instead and expel the one who did such a thing.   For my part, although I am physically absent, my spirit is with you and, as if present, I have already passed sen­tence on the man who committed such a sin.  Let us meet together, you and my spirit, and in the name of our Lord Jesus and with his power,   you shall deliver him to Satan, for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit be saved in the day of Judgment.

 This is not the time to praise yourselves. Do you not know that a little yeast makes the whole mass of dough rise?   Throw out, then, the old yeast and be new dough. If Christ became our Pass­over, you should be un­leavened bread.  Let us celebrate, therefore, the Passover, no longer with old yeast, which is sin and per­ver­sity; let us have unleavened bread, that is purity and sincerity.

 

Ps 5:5-6, 7, 12

Lead me in your justice, Lord.

 

＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊

Luke 6:6-11

On another Sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and began teaching. There was a man with a paralyzed right hand  and the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees watched him: Would ­Jesus heal the man on the Sabbath? If he did, they could accuse him.

But Jesus knew their thoughts and said to the man, “Get up and stand in the middle.” Then he spoke to them, “I want to ask you: what is allowed by the Law on the Sabbath, to do good or to do harm, to save life or destroy it?” And Jesus looked around at them all.

Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out and his hand was restored, becoming as whole as the other. But they were furious and began to discuss with one another how they could deal with Jesus.

 

Gospel Reflection：

When Love Trumps Law

In August 2020, a Sunday edition of the Spanish newspaper El Pais carried a two-page story on how, between 1940-1944 in the Nazi-occupied France, four Claretian missionaries in a Spanish mission in Paris forged baptismal and matrimonial documents to help 155 Jews in France to pass off as catholics in order to escape being caught and deported to concentration camps by the Nazis. (Read the story here: http//lightoftruth. in/coverstory/lying-for-the-gospel/).

 

Had the missionaries been caught doing so then, they would have endangered not only their own lives, but also the French-Spanish diplomatic relations, and probably triggered Nazi reactions against the Vatican as well as catholics (as the Nazis did to the Dutch Church). They violated the Church laws as well. But they did so at the behest of the Gospel. Tony de Mello once observed: “Obedience keeps the rules; love knows when to break them.”Jesus would agree.