Friday – 30th Week in Ordinary Time – A

In the first reading Saint Paul expresses his gratitude to the Philippians because they prove themselves to be faithful and loyal brothers and sisters in partnership. in spreading the gospel. Imagine that we are partners with the apostles in spreading the gospel each and every one of us. We are entrusted with the task and the lofty work of evangelization. And how do we do this? Well, the Lord put puts people on our path, and we are able to share with them the good news of what he has done for all of us, but in particular what he has done in my life. Saint Paul says to the Philippians, “And this is my prayer that your love may increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception to discern what is of value” (Philippians 1:9–10). My brothers and sisters, with so many distractions nowadays, so many things that occupy our time, our minds, our energies, our focus, so many distractions that impede us block us make it impossible for us sometimes to truly discern what is of value. Now, to put it in Saint Paul's terms, “if I had all things, but I lacked love, I have nothing”. So really the greatest thing of value is our loving relationship first with God and then with one another.

In the gospel, while dining at a pharisee's home on the Sabbath, Jesus encounters a man who is suffering from what's called dropsy, which is an abnormal accumulation of fluid. He challenges the religious authorities about healing on the Sabbath, and they don't answer him, but despite their silence, he heals the man anyways. In the Gospel, the Lord asks his persecutors, “is it lawful to cure on the Sabbath or not” (Luke 14:3)? And what Jesus is doing here is he's exposing the danger of how religious observance can become detached from compassion, and it was never meant to be so. True religion, in the eyes of God, Saint James tells us, is to look after the widow, take care of the orphan, to reach out to those less fortunate than ourselves. Because without these everything else is dead. “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:26). True spiritual discernment recognizes when compassion must take precedence even over rigid interpretations of religious obligations Notice, for example, what Saint Joseph did when he couldn't understand how this spotless creature that was entrusted to him in our blessed mother could become pregnant, and the law called for stoning to death.

Should a woman be sexually promiscuous, and active before entering into the house of her betrothed, she would be stoned to death. That's what the law called for but Joseph knew when mercy when compassion had to supersede even the law. And so he decides to send her away in secret, and just as about just as he's about to do that, the angel of the Lord appears to him in a dream, seeking God never denies his grace and his intervention from those who choose to be merciful and compassionate. and compassionate. Saint Francis of Assisi once said in his testament that when he was still in sin, and I quote, “it seemed too bitter for me to see lepers, and the Lord himself led me among them, and I showed mercy to them”.

Look at how God gave him the grace to confront his fears, to challenge himself to rise to the occasion to express empathy and compassion. Saint Francis's conversion was not simply a change in religious practices. it was much deeper than that it was a transformation of his heart. He began to see people differently because he had learned to love differently. My brothers and sisters we are called to do the same.

To see that the spirit of the law is what the letter of the law is directing us towards, If the Sabbath, for example, was given as a law to rest, but then you're saying to Jesus that he can't cure a person who is struggling and put them to rest, obviously you're allowing the letter of the law to blind you from its essence from the reason why it was given in the first place. My dear brothers and sisters, the question is not simply whether we are becoming more religious or pious, but whether we are becoming more loving. Amen