Tuesday
of Week 2 per annum
In the gospel today Pharisees criticise the
disciples for plucking grain from the edge of the field. For them this was a
transgression of the Law of Moses – plucking grain was deemed to be work and
therefore was forbidden. We can find this attitude surprising; not least,
because, if we are honest, our own keeping of the Sabbath is a million miles
from those Pharisees.
Some people wrongly interpret Our Lord’s teaching on
the Sabbath. They wrongly think that basically the Sabbath is something we can
forget about, all we need to do is go to mass (if we are not sick, or caring
for the sick etc.). So perhaps it would be good to remind ourselves how we should be keeping the Sabbath as
followers of Jesus Christ:
In the third commandment of the Decalogue (Ten
Commandmants) we are told to keep the Sabbath day holy – it is for the Lord,
and it is a day not to do any work. It is firstly then a day of protest against
the servitude of work! Work was something that came to us from the Fall of
Adam. In Eden, which was God’s original intention there was no labouring,
everything we needed was provided. So first of all by keeping a Sabbath day of
rest, God is pointing us towards His original intentions for humankind –
pointing us to heaven.
Secondly we are reminded also that Sabbath rest was
given to God’s people after they had been delivered from slavery – the Law of
Moses was given after the Israelites had left Egypt in order they could worship
God and live the way He wanted them to. So God is saying to us, through this
commandment, “You are not slaves.” This is something I particularly think is
important for us today in our frenetic world. Everything is busy, everything is
rush, we can easily be enslaved to this – God is saying to us, “That is not
what I made you for! Rest in me.”
Thirdly, the day is a day that is consecrated to God
- a holy day. It can be useful to think of it as a day that doesn’t belong to
us! It is the Lord ’s Day. It is even more so for us Christians because it is
the Day of Resurrection – the Day of the New Creation in Christ. By the waters
of Baptism we were reborn in Christ’s death and resurrection and therefore it
is a truly holy day. In our religious calendar it is a day that trumps all
days. It is never a day of penitence or fasting, it is always a day of joy and
recreation.
The Church calls us all to keep the Lord’s day holy
– to gather with our brothers and sisters in joy to celebrate: (1) we are not
slaves, (2) we are children of God called to eternal bliss, and (3) give the
day to the Lord in honour of His Resurrection, who gives it back to us for
respite, for prayer, for worship, for time with our family and friends, and to
be renewed in our Faith. So let us make it a distinctive day and truly give it
to the Lord.
IH
8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labour, and do all your work; 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates; 11 for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it. (Exodus 20 (RSVCE))
P.S. We can usefully consider how this could be a
useful witness to others.
