Bible Diary

Daily Reading

Monday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time

LECTIONARY
437

FIRST READING

1 COR 5:1-8

Brothers and sisters:
It is widely reported that there is immorality among you,
and immorality of a kind not found even among pagans–
a man living with his father’s wife.
And you are inflated with pride.
Should you not rather have been sorrowful?
The one who did this deed should be expelled from your midst.
I, for my part, although absent in body but present in spirit,
have already, as if present,
pronounced judgment on the one who has committed this deed,
in the name of our Lord Jesus:
when you have gathered together and I am with you in spirit
with the power of the Lord Jesus,
you are to deliver this man to Satan
for the destruction of his flesh,
so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.

Your boasting is not appropriate.
Do you not know that a little yeast leavens all the dough?
Clear out the old yeast, so that you may become a fresh batch of dough,
inasmuch as you are unleavened.
For our Paschal Lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed.
Therefore, let us celebrate the feast,
not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness,
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

PSALM

PS 5:5-6, 7, 12

Response: Lead me in your justice, Lord.

For you, O God, delight not in wickedness;
no evil man remains with you;
the arrogant may not stand in your sight.
You hate all evildoers.

You destroy all who speak falsehood;
The bloodthirsty and the deceitful
the LORD abhors.

But let all who take refuge in you
be glad and exult forever.
Protect them, that you may be the joy
of those who love your name.

GOSPEL

LK 6:6-11

On a certain sabbath Jesus went into the synagogue and taught,
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 realized 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.

Daily Reflection

In today’s Gospel, we return to the Synagogue on the Sabbath where Jesus is teaching. Again, the Pharisees are watching to see whether he would break the law. And Jesus obliges. There is a man with a withered hand whom Jesus cures while at the same time throwing out a challenge to the teachers of the law, ‘What is allowed by the law on the Sabbath? To do good or to do harm, to save life or destroy it?’

In asking the question, Jesus draws attention to the extremes we sometime go to in misbegotten zeal or, as in the case of the Pharisees, for the love of power and the ability to control.

The message that we are given is that power in office comes from God alone – he has vested the elected with the responsibility to discharge their duty mercifully and with love. For those of us not in higher office, the rule still applies – to demonstrate the loving face of the Father at all times and in all places.