Homily for Monday of the 23rd Week in Ordinary Time (Fr. Jack)

It is probably the case that Jesus had no intention to initiate the disagreement in the synagogue that we hear about in our Gospel passage from St. Luke today. However, He rightly sensed that the scribes and the Pharisees were trying to trap Him and to cast Him in a negative light before the people.

Those who were filled with such anger because Jesus had cured someone on the Sabbath Day were using a disabled man to make Jesus look like a lawbreaker, using the man’s disability to get at the “rebellious” preacher from Nazareth.

There is a human tendency to put limits on the love of God, as evidenced by the narrow-minded people who tried to limit Jesus’ outreach and exclude individuals or whole groups from His help.

However, the power of Jesus cannot be bound by narrow and rigid traditions. So many superficial reasons can be given for not doing the right thing: it’s the wrong day of the week to come looking for help; fear of siding with the unemployed, the disabled, or the unborn; feeling unable to correct a powerful, influential person, for obvious wrongdoing. And people even see reasons why God should not act generously. But God does act generously, and He did so in the person of Jesus, and today, He does so in you and in me as His instruments in our world.

May the call to act mercifully and generously in the name of God be answered in our words, actions, and attitudes toward all people, regardless of the time, the day, or the cultural or political climate. +