Monday of Week 23 Year 1

Most of us are busy people, but we should take care not to overdo things. Sometimes we do too much at the expense of something else. Perhaps the something else could be our health, and all the effort in doing so much ends up in poor health or hefty medical bills. Perhaps the something else could be our strained relationship with family and friends. Or perhaps the something else could be our deteriorating relationship with God. We ought to remember that the Lord's day or the Sabbath is for all Catholics to gather for Mass to be nourished by the Lord. Just as God "rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done," human life has a rhythm of work and rest. The institution of the Lord's Day helps everyone enjoy adequate rest and leisure to cultivate their familial, cultural, social, and religious lives.

That being said, we come across the scribes and the Pharisees in today's Gospel who had extreme views about the Sabbath. Any logical and decent human being would have concurred with Jesus by doing good and to save life on the Sabbath, if and when the need arises. But not the scribes and Pharisees, since these folks were so extreme and stubborn that not a single thing could be done during the Sabbath. Jesus was amazed with their attitude, and He still went ahead to cure the man with the withered hand. Naturally, this did not go well with the scribes and the Pharisees, and they began to discuss the best way of dealing with Jesus.

Sometimes we too could be just as guilty like the scribes and the Pharisees. Some of us could be doing unnecessary things on the Sabbath, while others may be doing absolutely nothing, not even good things, like the scribes and the Pharisees. Have some of us forgotten that ultimately, what God wants is "mercy, not sacrifice?"