Lòng nhân ái thực sự tôn trọng công lý, và giúp ngăn cản chúng ta rơi vào tình trạng tùy tiện hoặc làm theo ý thích, trong khi giữ chúng ta không rơi vào trong sự khắc nghiệt là giết chết tinh thần thực sự Luật pháp của Thiên Chúa; Vì lòng bác ái, nhân từ chính là tình yêu cho phép chúng tai trao chính mình cho những người khác. Chúa Giêsu đã nói rằng “Ta muốn lòng thương xót và nhân ái chứ đâu cần lễ tế..”
Nhờ ân sủng của Thiên Chúa mà chúng ta có thể quan tâm nghiêm túc đến các vấn đề của người khác, kiểm tra chúng bằng tình yêu thương và sự thông cảm, mà không bao giờ đưa ra phán xét.
Lạy Mẹ Mary, Mẹ của Thiên Chúa, xin cầu bầu cho chúng con để chúng con có thể có được ân sủng của sự tha thứ và lòng thương xót để chúng ta trở nên nhân từ và biết bác ái với những người khác.
Reflection Friday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time 2023
True charity respects the demands for justice, by preventing us from falling into arbitrariness or whim, while keeping us from that harshness which kills the true spirit of God’s Law; for charity is the love which enables us to give ourselves to others. Jesus proclaims that it is mercy not sacrifice that God demands from us.
The Son of Man, Jesus, is the Lord of the Sabbath and the law is given not for the sake of God, but for the sake of human beings. Let us repeat Jesus’ powerful words many times in order to engrave them on our hearts: God, who is rich in mercy, wants us to be merciful. “How close God is to him who confesses his mercy! God is not far from those who are contrite of heart.” How far away from God are we when we let our hearts turn into hard stone! Jesus accused the Pharisees of condemning the innocent. That is a serious accusation. By God’s grace, we can be seriously interested in other people’s problems considering them with affection and sympathy, without giving into judgement. Mary, Mother of God, obtain for us the grace of forgiveness and mercy so that we become benevolent and kind towards others.
Jesus was going through a field of grain on the sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “See, your disciples are doing what is unlawful to do on the sabbath.” Matthew 12:1–2
When Moses gave the Ten Commandments to the people, there was a prohibition against working on the Sabbath. The Third Commandment said, in part, that “you shall not do any work” on the Sabbath (Exodus 20:10). By the time of Jesus, the Pharisees had added much commentary to this law and expanded it to include as many as 39 different forms of work that they believed was forbidden. Included in their list were the practices of harvesting and milling of grain. For that reason, when the Pharisees saw that the disciples were picking heads of grain and rubbing the grain off the husks so that they could eat it, the Pharisees condemned them for violating what they interpreted to be an offense against the Third Commandment.
The first thing we can note from this passage is that the disciples were hungry. They were exceptionally devoted to Jesus and had been traveling with Him from town to town so that He could preach the Gospel. They had given up occupation, home, family and income so as to be singly devoted to Jesus and His mission. And as a result of this, they were living in poverty and relying upon the generosity of others. It is in this context that they chose to eat the most humble of foods: grain that they picked as they walked. They didn’t complain that there wasn’t a hot meal waiting for them at their destination. They were accepting of the many long journeys by foot that they made. They were okay with the fact that they did not get to sleep in their own bed every night. But they did have the basic human need for food, so they picked this grain as they walked to fulfill this basic need of hunger.
Though there are many lessons we can learn from this passage, one clear lesson is that of the temptation to judge and condemn others. When we fall into the trap of judging others, there are a few things that are common. First, judging and condemning often is based on perceived wrongs that are inflated and exaggerated. The Pharisees clearly inflated and exaggerated this “sin” of the disciples. In our lives, judgmentalness almost always makes the perceived sin of another far more serious than it is, if it is sin at all.
Another common temptation that flows from a judgmental and condemning heart is the failure to even understand the condemned party. In this case above, the Pharisees did not even inquire into the reason the disciples were picking and eating grain. They didn’t ask if they had been without food for some time or how long they had been traveling. It didn’t matter to them that they were hungry, and most likely, very hungry. So also with us, it is common that when we judge and condemn another, we arrive at our verdict without even seeking to understand the situation.
Lastly, it needs to be said that judging others is not our right. Doing so is usually reckless and caused by our own self-centeredness. God did not give the Pharisees the authority to expand the Third Commandment into 39 forbidden practices, nor did He give them the authority to apply those interpretations to the perceived actions of the disciples. And God does not give us the authority to judge others either. If another is clearly caught in a cycle of objectively grave sin, we must do all we can to help draw them out of that sin. But even in that case, we have no right to judge or condemn.
Reflect, today, upon any tendency you have toward being judgmental and condemning of others. If you see this tendency within yourself, spend time thinking about the Pharisees. Their self-righteousness was ugly and damaging. The negative example they set should inspire us to turn away from such acts of condemnation and to reject those temptations the moment they come.
My divine Judge of All, You and You alone know the heart, and You and You alone are capable of acting as Judge. Please exercise Your authority in my life so that I can perceive my own sin. As You do, please also free me from the tendency to judge and condemn. Fill me, instead, with a heart full of mercy and truth toward all. Jesus, I trust in You.
Opening Prayer: Lord God, I will imitate your merciful love and offer you the pleasing sacrifice of a life lived in communion with your Son. Accept my offering today, purify it with your Spirit, and unite it to the sacrifice of your Son.
1. New Leadership: In the Gospel, Jesus and his disciples were walking through a field of grain on the sabbath. The Pharisees were spying on Jesus and saw that his disciples began to pick heads of grain. The Pharisees accused Jesus’ disciples of violating the third commandment, “Remember the sabbath day – keep it holy” (see Exodus 20:8-11). Plucking grain to satisfy hunger was actually permissible, even on the sabbath. A strong debate about the sabbath rest arose during the time of the Maccabees. Some thought that fighting to defend themselves on the sabbath was a violation of the Sabbath rest. Others, however, when they saw the massacre of men, women, and children on the sabbath, decided that fighting to defend life was permissible on the sabbath. Jesus doesn’t refer here to the Maccabees to defend the actions of his disciples, but to David and his companions. He alludes to how the priests bake new bread on the sabbath and do not violate the sabbath by doing so. He also alludes to how he and his disciples are greater than David: If David and his men can eat the bread of the presence in the sanctuary, and if the priests of the temple can prepare bread without violating the sabbath, how much more can I, the Son of Man and Lord of the Sabbath, and my disciples, pluck grain and eat it. There is something greater than King David, the Aaronic priests, and the Temple itself here!
Opening Prayer: Lord God, I will imitate your merciful love and offer you the pleasing sacrifice of a life lived in communion with your Son. Accept my offering today, purify it with your Spirit, and unite it to the sacrifice of your Son.
1. The Prophet Isaiah and King Hezekiah: When Isaiah counseled Ahaz, a wicked king of Judah, not to form an alliance with Assyria and become Assyria’s vassal, Ahaz did not listen. A similar situation occurred thirty years later with King Hezekiah, one of the two good kings of Judah. In 703 B.C., Isaiah counseled Hezekiah to not enter into an alliance with Tyre, Philistia, and Egypt against the Assyrians. The prophet thought that this action was comparable to renouncing faith in the Lord. “Isaiah was proposing a strategy of faith such as he might have learned from the witness of Moses commanding the Israelites of the Exodus to remain calm and steadfast as they stood on the shore of the Sea while their enemies descended on them (see Ex 14:14). The prophet insisted that faith, not force, would lead to freedom from Assyrian oppression: ‘Your salvation lay in conversion and tranquility, your strength in serenity and trust’ (Is 30:15)” (Duggan, The Consuming Fire, 268). As the Assyrian king, Sennacherib, marched toward Judah in 701 B.C., Hezekiah began to fortify the city of Jerusalem and protect the water supply. “Although Isaiah had protested Hezekiah’s folly in drawing the Assyrian wrath upon Jerusalem, he supported the king and encouraged the people when the enemy surrounded the city. The prophet declared that [the Lord] would still preserve his city by terrifying the Assyrians with the authority of his presence (30:27-33)” (Duggan, The Consuming Fire, 268). Isaiah’s prophecy was fulfilled: the angel of the Lord slew a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp and Sennacherib retreated back to Nineveh (2 Kings 19:35-37).
Introductory Prayer: Almighty and ever-living God, I seek new strength from the courage of Christ, our shepherd. I believe in you, I hope in you, and I seek to love you with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. I want to be led one day to join the saints in heaven, where your Son Jesus Christ lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever.
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