October 31, 2025
Friday of the Thirtieth Week
in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 483
Reading
1
Brothers and
sisters:
I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie;
my conscience joins with the Holy Spirit in bearing me witness
that I have great sorrow and constant anguish in my heart.
For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ
for the sake of my own people,
my kindred according to the flesh.
They are children of Israel;
theirs the adoption, the glory, the covenants,
the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises;
theirs the patriarchs, and from them,
according to the flesh, is the Christ,
who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.
Responsorial
Psalm
R. Praise
the Lord, Jerusalem.
Glorify the LORD, O Jerusalem;
praise your God, O Zion.
For he has strengthened the bars of your gates;
he has blessed your children within you.
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
He has granted peace in your borders;
with the best of wheat he fills you.
He sends forth his command to the earth;
swiftly runs his word!
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
He has proclaimed his word to Jacob,
his statutes and his ordinances to Israel.
He has not done thus for any other nation;
his ordinances he has not made known to them. Alleluia.
R. Praise the Lord, Jerusalem.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia,
alleluia.
My sheep hear my voice, says the Lord;
I know them, and they follow me.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
On a sabbath Jesus
went to dine
at the home of one of the leading Pharisees,
and the people there were observing him carefully.
In front of him there was a man suffering from dropsy.
Jesus spoke to the scholars of the law and Pharisees in reply, asking,
"Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath or not?"
But they kept silent; so he took the man and,
after he had healed him, dismissed him.
Then he said to them
"Who among you, if your son or ox falls into a cistern,
would not immediately pull him out on the sabbath day?"
But they were unable to answer his question.
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/103125.cfm
Commentary on Romans
9:1-5
In today’s reading, Paul now moves on to a theme which
causes him great pain, namely, the rejection of Jesus as Messiah by the vast
majority of his fellow-Jews.
We hear people making a wholesale condemnation of the Jewish
people for their rejection of Christianity, but here as in most situations, generalisations
are highly inaccurate. Jesus himself and his mother were Jews. All of Jesus’
early disciples were Jews, as were all of the first converts. Even after
Gentiles began to be baptised, there were still Jews becoming Christians.
However, the majority were not ready to accept Jesus as the expected Messiah
and, in addition, they acted in some places very strongly against the
Christians, whom they saw as renegade or heretical Jews.
Speaking of his own people Paul says that:
I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
And he emphasises that these are not just empty words when
he says:
…I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my
conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit…
Perhaps some felt he was not sincere because elsewhere he
has been extremely critical of the attitude and behaviour of some Jews—both
Christians and non-Christians.
But he feels so strongly for the spiritual future of his
people that he is ready to be cut off entirely from Christ if this would
benefit the brothers and sisters who are his own flesh and blood. Literally, he
is willing to be “accursed”—an anathema—to be someone condemned and put under a
ban of exclusion. And we know how intense Paul’s feelings were for Christ when
he says:
…it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives
in me.
(Gal 2:20)
In his letter to the Philippians his love for Christ is so
great that he does not know whether he wants to live or die. In death, he would
be with his beloved Christ forever; in life, he could continue his work of
helping others to know the Christ he knows and loves (see Phil 1:18).
The “brothers and sisters” who are his “own flesh and blood”
are his fellow-Jews, the actual descendants of Jacob (who was also called
‘Israel’). The name ‘Israel’ was then used of the entire nation, and later of
the Northern Kingdom alone after the nation was divided, with the Southern
Kingdom being called Judah.
During the period preceding and later in New Testament
times, Palestinian Jews used the title to indicate that they were the chosen
people of God. Its use here is especially relevant because Paul is about to
show that, despite Israel’s unbelief and disobedience, God’s promises to her
are still valid:
They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the
glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship [of God],
and the promises…
Emanating from this ancestral link, Paul lists all the
privileges that came with it: their adoption as God’s children, the glory of
God at times clearly evident among his people, the covenants with Abraham, with
Jacob-Israel, with Moses, the worship of the one true God, the Law which
expresses God’s will, the messianic promises and, finally, their physical
relationship with Christ, a son of David. They have a very special place in
God’s plan and it is no wonder that Paul grieves over their rejection of Jesus.
…to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according
to the flesh, comes the Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.
From the Jews came the great patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob
and his twelve sons, after whom the tribes of Israel are named. But above all,
it is from them that Christ is physically descended in his humanity. Jesus was
a Jew born of a Jewish mother. All his family were Jews and he spent his whole
life, with only one or two very brief exceptions, immersed in Jewish society.
He went to the Temple and attended the synagogue. At the same time, Paul
reminds us that Christ above all shares God’s divine nature in one of the
clearest statements of the divinity of Jesus found in the entire New Testament.
Speaking of Christ’s origins and his relationship with the
Father arising from the last sentence in the reading, the Jerusalem
Bible comments:
Both the context and the internal development of the
sentence imply that this doxology is addressed to Christ. Paul rarely gives
Jesus the title ‘God’, though cf. Tit 2:13, or addresses a doxology to him, cf.
Heb 13:21, but this is because he usually keeps this title for the Father and
considers the divine persons not so much with an abstract appreciation of their
nature as with a concrete appreciation of their functions in the
process of salvation. Moreover, he has always in mind the historical Christ
in his concrete reality as God made man. For this reason he presents Christ as
subordinated to the Father, not only in the work of creation, but also in that
of eschatological renewal. Nevertheless, the title ‘Lord’, Kyrios,
received by Christ at his resurrection, is the title given by the Septuagint
[the Greek translation of the Old Testament] to Yahweh in the Old Testament.
For Paul, Jesus is essentially ‘the Son of God’, his ‘own Son’, ‘the son of his
love’, who belongs to the sphere of the divine by right, the sphere from which
he came, being sent by God. The title ‘Son of God’ became his in a new way with
the resurrection, but it was not then he received it since he pre-existed not
only as prefigured in the Old Testament, but ontologically. He is the Wisdom,
and the Image, by which and in which all things were created, and have been
re-created, because into his own person is gathered the fullness of the godhead
and of the universe. In him God has devised the whole plan of salvation, and
he, no less than the Father, is its accomplishment. As the Father raises to
life and judges, so does the Son raise to life and judge. In short, he is one
of the three Persons enumerated in the Trinitarian formulae. (edited, text
references omitted)
This Jewish tradition of which Paul speaks is a tradition
which we Christians acknowledge and recognise by our constant reading of the
Old Testament. In fact, we cannot fully understand Christ and the New Testament
without making the Old Testament part of our tradition.
Jesus, as Matthew points out again and again, was not a
turning away from Judaism, but its fulfilment. Jesus says in the Sermon on the
Mount:
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the
Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
(Matt 5:17)
While we regret that many Jews still distance themselves
from our faith—often, it must be emphasised, in good conscience—we must never
contribute in any way to the hatred or discrimination that has been directed
towards them over the centuries, not least by many who called themselves
Christians, leading ultimately to the horrors of the Holocaust.
There can be no doubt that many Jews are very close to God.
They are our brothers and sisters and both communities should do all they can
to come closer together and share their common heritage.
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Commentary on Luke
14:1-6
Today we enter a series of four teachings from Jesus, all
connected with meals. It begins with another example of a confrontation between
Jesus and some religious leaders on a Sabbath. Altogether there are seven
Sabbath healings recorded in the Gospels, of which Luke mentions five. The
other two are in John—the healing of the paralysed man at the Sheep Gate (see
John 5:10 and following) and the healing of the man born blind (John 9:14 and
following).
Jesus had apparently been invited to have a meal in a
Pharisee’s house on a Sabbath day. We have mentioned before that the word
‘Pharisee’ means ‘separated one’. They numbered about 6,000 and were found all
over Palestine. They taught in synagogues, saw themselves as religious
paragons, and were self-appointed guardians of the Law and its observance. They
regarded their interpretations of traditions to be virtually as authoritative
as Scripture (see Mark 7:8-13). The scribes studied, interpreted and taught the
Law, both written and oral. Most of them were also Pharisees and hence they are
often paired in the Gospel.
It certainly looks as if the invitation was what is known as
a ‘set up’ because, we are told, “they were watching him closely”. And there
right in front of him (what a coincidence!) was a man suffering from edema, an
accumulation of fluid in the body caused by some other illness (this is the
only place in the original Greek of the New Testament where the term Luke uses
for this sickness is found).
Far from being put on the defensive, Jesus immediately
throws down a challenge:
Is it lawful to cure people on the Sabbath or not?
Strictly speaking, according to the letter of the Law as
interpreted by the scribes and Pharisees present, it was not lawful. Because
‘curing’ involved medical work and it could take time and energy. By asking
them his question before the healing, Jesus made it difficult for them to
protest afterwards. And in fact they dared not give him an answer. To say ‘yes’
could make them seem lax in their interpretation; to say ‘no’ would seem cruel
to the man.
So Jesus took the man, healed him on the spot and sent him
off. He then turns to his critics with another question:
If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a
well, will you not immediately pull it out on a Sabbath day?
They had no answer because no answer was necessary or
possible. What Jesus had done was unlawful only according to rabbinic
interpretations, but not according to the Mosaic Law itself.
Their mindset was revealed and it was not the mindset of
Jesus. For them people came second to legalities. For Jesus the law was there
for people. Jesus was moved by compassion and the well-being of people.
Sometimes that meant the law had to be put aside—a principle which they also
recognised as proved by the examples that Jesus gave.
How many times have we become the victim of our desire for
human ‘respect’—of failiing to go to the help of a person because we were
afraid of what people might say or how they might judge us? They may even throw
Church ‘rules’ and ‘commandments’ in our face as criticism. But no one who acts
out of genuine love for others can go far wrong. No truly loving act can be
sinful.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/o1306g/
Friday,
October 31, 2025
Ordinary Time
Opening Prayer
Almighty and ever-living God, strengthen our faith, hope, and
love.
May we do with loving hearts what
you ask of us and come to share the life you promise.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives
and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Gospel Reading - Luke 14: 1-6
It happened that on a Sabbath day Jesus had gone to share a
meal in the house of one of the leading Pharisees; and they watched him
closely. Now there in front of him was a man with dropsy, and Jesus addressed
the lawyers and Pharisees with the words, 'Is it against the law to cure
someone on the Sabbath, or not?'
But they remained silent, so he
took the man and cured him and sent him away.
Then he said to them, 'Which of you here, if his son falls
into a well, or his ox, will not pull him out on a Sabbath day without any
hesitation?' And to this they could find no answer.
Reflection
Today’s Gospel narrates an episode of the discussion between
Jesus and the Pharisees, which took place along his journey from Galilee up to
Jerusalem. It is very difficult to situate this fact in the context of the life
of Jesus. There are similarities with a fact narrated in the Gospel of Mark (Mk
3: 1-6). Probably it is a question of the many stories transmitted orally and,
in the oral transmission; they were adapted in accordance with the situation,
the need and the hopes, of the people of the communities.
• Luke
14: 1: The invitation on a Saturday. “On a Sabbath day Jesus went to share a
meal in the house of one of the leading Pharisees and they watched him
closely.” This initial information on the reception in the house of a Pharisee
gives Luke the possibility to present several episodes which speak about
welcoming, accepting to have a meal: the cure of the sick man (Lk 14: 2-6),
choice of places where to eat (Lk 14: 7-11), choice of the guests invited (Lk
14: 12-14), those invited who do not accept the invitation (Lk 14: 15-24). Many
times, Jesus is invited by the Pharisees to share a meal. Perhaps the reason
for inviting him was out of curiosity and some malice, wishing to observe Jesus
to see how he observes the prescriptions of the law.
• Luke
14: 2: The situation which brings about the action of Jesus. “There was a man
with dropsy.” It is not said how a man with dropsy could enter the house of the
head of the Pharisees. But if he is in front of Jesus it is because he wants to
be cured. The Pharisees observe Jesus. It was a Saturday, and it is forbidden
to cure on a Saturday. What to do? Can it be done or not?
• Luke
14: 3: The question of Jesus to the Scribes and the Pharisees. “Jesus
addressing the lawyers and the Pharisees asked, Is it against the law to cure
someone on the Sabbath or not? With his question Jesus explains the problem
which they had before them: “Can one cure or not on Saturday? Does the law
permit this, yes or no? In Mark’s Gospel the question is even more provocative:
“Is it permitted on the Sabbath day to do good, or to do evil, to save life or
to kill?” (Mk 3: 4).
• Luke
14: 4-6: The cure. The Pharisees do not respond and remain in silence. Before
the silence of the one who neither approves nor disapproves, Jesus takes the man
by the hand, cures him and sends him away. After, to respond to a possible
criticism, he explains the reason that has moved him to cure: “Which of you
here, if his son falls into a well, or his ox, will not pull him out on a
Sabbath day without any hesitation?” With this question Jesus shows the
incoherence of the lawyers and of the Pharisees. If one of them has no problem,
on Saturday, to help his son or even an animal, so Jesus also has the right to
help the man with dropsy. Jesus’ question recalls the Psalm, where it is said
that God himself helps men and animals (Ps 36: 8). The Pharisees “Could not
respond anything to these words”; because before the evidence, there are no
arguments which can deny it.
Personal Questions
• The
liberty of Jesus before a situation. Even though he is being observed by those
who do not approve him, he does not lose his liberty. Which is the liberty that
I have?
• There
are difficult moments in life, in which we are obliged to choose between the
immediate need of our neighbor and the letter of the law. How should we act?
Concluding Prayer
I give thanks to Yahweh with all my heart, in the
meeting-place of honest people, in the assembly. Great are the deeds of Yahweh,
to be pondered by all who delight in them. (Ps 111: 1-2)
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