For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the
Lord. Live as children of light. Ephesians
5:8
“Does not each one of you on the sabbath untie his ox or
his ass from the manger and lead it out for watering? This daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has
bound for eighteen years now, ought she not to have been set free on the
sabbath day from this bondage?” Luke 13:15-16
Piety
Piety and study are the fuel
that lights our lamp so we can spread love in action.
Study
Light cannot exist in
darkness. If you put a flashlight in a
dark closet, it is not a dark closet any longer. Once we become the light of the Lord, we have
a duty, an obligation to bring light where we go. Love is not an option. It is the only choice. If we live, then we shall love. We shall love God. We shall love each other.
When Jesus was confronted in
the temple on the Sabbath with the woman who was crippled, he had an obligation
to love her. In this instance, love
required Jesus to heal her. It was his
very God-man nature to do so. He had no
other choice. Then, when he was
confronted by the hypocritical leader of the synagogue, Jesus set him
straight. Maybe too stridently.
According to Roger
Karban writing in the National Catholic Reporter, “Just because a teaching
or practice is new to some doesn't mean it's really new. It simply might have
been outside our field of vision -- for centuries.” Healing on the sabbath seemed new to those
who were used to being told not to do anything on the Sabbath.
Jesus’ words, Luke reports, went
one giant step beyond just healing. The
case Jesus made that the woman deserved healing even if it was the Sabbath humiliated
the leader in front of his congregation.
Despite numerous examples in Luke’s account of Jesus’ life when the Lord
was speaking truth-to-power, the Sabbath healings are when Jesus sealed his
fate. There were plenty of other
confrontations. However, Jesus extracted
total victory and humiliated his adversary this time and in his series of sabbath
healings in order to set the wheels in motion for what was necessary.
Then
he took the Twelve aside and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to
Jerusalem and everything written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be
fulfilled. He will be handed over to the
Gentiles and he will be mocked and insulted and spat upon; and
after they have scourged him they will kill him, but on the third day he will rise.” But they understood
nothing of this; the word remained hidden from them and they failed to
comprehend what he said. Luke 18:31-34
Action
What new action might you
take that will break with your regular pattern of behavior? Is there a new ministry in your parish that
interests you? Is there a neighbor you
want to visit? Is there a new person you want to invite to your Group Reunion? Is there a new parish where you would like to
worship? Your Fourth Day is the time to
try out these new challenges.
In Mr. Karban’s commentary
(linked above) he writes of a workshop assignment. “I remember a workshop exercise in which we
were asked to list 10 things we considered priorities in our lives. Then, on
the other side of the paper, we were to write the date of the last time we
actually did one of those things. It was a revelation. Thinking about something
isn't close to doing something about it. Rarely do we live our priorities.”
What would your list of
priorities and the dates look like?
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