Monday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time
PREACHING CHRIST
Introduction
In the first reading of today, we hear Paul speaks with conviction and enthusiasm about his mission of preaching the Gospel. It is a glorious task. We can feel how the Gospel fills him and has become the sole meaning of his life. Let Christ also be the meaning of our lives. If so, we cannot but preach him by our words and our way of life.
Opening Prayer
Lord our God,
in your Son, Jesus Christ,
you have revealed to us
your treasures of wisdom and love.
His life and his Gospel are so full and rich,
that we can never exhaust their wisdom.
Let it be a life and a wisdom
in which we grow day after day.
Make us complete in Christ,
that we may hasten
the coming of his kingdom
in ourselves and among people far and near.
We ask you this through Christ, our Lord.
Reading 1: Col1:24–2:3
I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake,
and in my flesh I am filling up
what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ
on behalf of his Body, which is the Church,
of which I am a minister
in accordance with God’s stewardship given to me
to bring to completion for you the word of God,
the mystery hidden from ages and from generations past.
But now it has been manifested to his holy ones,
to whom God chose to make known the riches of the glory
of this mystery among the Gentiles;
it is Christ in you, the hope for glory.
It is he whom we proclaim,
admonishing everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom,
that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.
For this I labor and struggle,
in accord with the exercise of his power working within me.
For I want you to know how great a struggle I am having for you
and for those in Laodicea
and all who have not seen me face to face,
that their hearts may be encouraged
as they are brought together in love,
to have all the richness of assured understanding,
for the knowledge of the mystery of God, Christ,
in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Responsorial Psalm: Ps 62:6-7, 9
Only in God be at rest, my soul,
for from him comes my hope.
He only is my rock and my salvation,
my stronghold; I shall not be disturbed.
R. In God is my safety and my glory.
Trust in him at all times, O my people!
Pour out your hearts before him;
God is our refuge!
R. In God is my safety and my glory.
Alleluia: Jn 10:27
My sheep hear my voice, says the Lord;
I know them, and they follow me.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel: Lk 6:6-11
and there was a man there whose right hand was withered.
The scribes and the Pharisees watched him closely
to see if he would cure on the sabbath
so that they might discover a reason to accuse him.
But he their intentions
and said to the man with the withered hand,
“Come up and stand before us.”
And he rose and stood there.
Then Jesus said to them,
“I ask you, is it lawful to do good on the sabbath
rather than to do evil,
to save life rather than to destroy it?”
Looking around at them all, he then said to him,
“Stretch out your hand.”
He did so and his hand was restored.
But they became enraged
and discussed together what they might do to Jesus.
Intentions
– Lord Jesus, open our minds and hearts to understand your Gospel in all its riches, that we may live it and communicate it to others, we pray:
– Lord Jesus, may our sick and suffering people understand that they follow and complete the suffering of Christ and may this realization strengthen them, we pray:
– Lord Jesus, may our communities understand and love you and be united in you, we pray:
Prayer over the Gifts
Lord our God,
accept these gifts as a sign
of our faith in your Son, Jesus Christ.
Let us become smaller
and Christ grow greater in us,
that you may recognize and love in us
your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Prayer after Communion
Lord our God,
you have spoken to us
your living Word, Jesus Christ,
and given us his body to eat.
Give to this word an ever-new resonance,
that we may never get tired of it
or think we have exhausted it.
And what we have heard and understood,
help us to speak it in our own words
and in the language of our lives.
We ask this in the name of Jesus, the Lord.
Blessing
In Christ are found all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. It is him we have to proclaim with our lives and to become mature in him. May God bless you all, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Reflection
September 11
Luke 6:6-11
The right way of keeping the Sabbath
“I ask you, is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?” (Luke 6:9). Jesus asked the Pharisees this question. They observed him closely to have a reason to accuse him(Luke 6:7). The question is phrased in such a way that healing that man with a withered hand means saving his life but refraining from healing because it is the sabbath would mean destroying his life.
The Pharisees would definitively oppose such a conclusion and they did not answer Jesus’ question. They would say, as one of the leaders of a certain synagogue said: “There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day”(Luke 13:14). After all, it was not a case of emergency. Jesus could heal the man with a withered hand on the following day.
The problem with such an argument is that Jesus did not perform any operation. He did not do anything that could be considered work; he did not even touch the man. He simply said: “Stretch out your hand”. A spoken word that heals cannot be considered ‘work’. So why did the Pharisees get so furious? Because Jesus did what they could not do? Because he acted with such confidence and freedom?
There was darkness at the beginning of the first creation and so God said: “Let there be light” (Gen. 1:3). There was ‘darkness’ on the first day of the new creation (John 20:1) but the light of Easter has dispelled that darkness. Finally, there is also darkness in the human heart and so the Church was sent to proclaim the light of the Gospel. “For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ“(2 Cor. 4:6).
The Sabbath cannot be an excuse to refrain ourselves from doing good.Jesus helps us to realize that every law should be made for man, for the good of every person. If a law or regulation prevents us from helping others then either there is something wrong with the law or we got the law wrong in the first place. That was the problem of the Pharisees. “Keeping the Sabbath” was never intended to prevent the believers from helping others.The proper way of “keeping the Sabbath” is to do good and to save life.