MONDAY 30th OCTOBER 2023
Luke 13, 10-17
“One Sabbath Jesus was teaching in a synagogue. There was a woman who had been sick with a spirit for eighteen years, and she was bent over and could not straighten up. When Jesus saw her, he called her to him and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your illness”. He laid his hands on her and immediately she stood up straight and glorified God”.
The synagogue and the Sabbath are the symbol of Jewish legalism and ritualism that had become such a burden that it oppressed the person, causing them to bend down and look down and not up to God.
By their intransigence, the Jewish laws had become an end in themselves.
Jesus gives them back their true meaning because for Jesus people come first: “the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath”.
Above any rule or law is the rule and the law of love and mercy. The human being, who is the image of God, comes first. That is why Jesus does not hesitate to heal on the Sabbath, a holy day for a Jew on which no work could be done.
He restores dignity to the bent woman and frees her from her bonds by placing her in God’s sight. May the supreme standard of your life also be the supreme standard of love and mercy.
Good day to you.
Antonio Sanjuan Cmf
