A reading from the holy Gospel according to Mark
Jesus said to the Pharisees: “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. That is why the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”
In today’s Gospel passage from Mark, Jesus passes through a field of grain on the sabbath, and his disciples picked the heads of grain as they walked with him. The Pharisees see this and tell Jesus that what they are doing is unlawful on the sabbath. Jesus answers them: “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions were hungry? How he went into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest and ate the bread of offering that only the priests could lawfully eat, and shared it with his companions?” By saying this to the Pharisees, Jesus reaffirms to them the purpose of the sabbath—since his resurrection, the Lord’s Day—and at the same time reveals his divinity as “Lord of the sabbath.” Like the Pharisees, am I bound to certain rituals that prevent me from knowing God’s love and recognizing his grace even as he offers it to me?
God, you made the sabbath for your people as an invitation to return to you, to return to holiness. Help me understand the divine purpose for which you created the sabbath. In the coming of your Son, a new order comes in keeping the meaning of the sabbath holy by transferring its observance to the first day of the week, the Lord’s Day. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we hold the belief that “Those who lived according to the old order of things have come to a new hope, no longer keeping the Sabbath, but the Lord’s Day.” Lord of the sabbath, Lord of all, help me during the week to long to see you in the celebration of the Eucharist each Sunday.
What is left but to thank you, God, for all of your graces of this day and every day. As the Responsorial Psalm says: “He has won renown for his wondrous deeds; gracious and merciful is the LORD.”
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.