Daily Gospel Reflection – Memorial of Saint Peter Claver, Priest
Bishop Robert Barron
September 9, 2023
Memorial of Saint Peter Claver, Priest
Gospel: Lk 6:1-5
While Jesus was going through a field of grain on a sabbath,
his disciples were picking the heads of grain,
rubbing them in their hands, and eating them.
Some Pharisees said,
"Why are you doing what is unlawful on the sabbath?"
Jesus said to them in reply,
"Have you not read what David did
when he and those who were with him were hungry?
How he went into the house of God, took the bread of offering,
which only the priests could lawfully eat,
ate of it, and shared it with his companions?"
Then he said to them, "The Son of Man is lord of the sabbath."
*United States Conference of Catholic
Bishop Robert Barron
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus declares that he is Lord of the sabbath.
Again and again, Jesus is portrayed as violating the sacred command to rest on the seventh day. His disciples pick grain on the sabbath, and many times he cures on the sabbath, much to the dismay of the protectors of Jewish law.
When challenged, he declares himself Lord of the sabbath (a breathtaking claim for a Jew to make, since Yahweh alone could be assigned that title) and clarifies that the sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath.
In short, he claimed the properly divine prerogative of relativizing the significance of perhaps the defining practice of pious Jews and placing it in subordination to the kingdom of God.
COMMENTS