2024-01-16 08:37:11
Dear friends:
The important things in life are gift and task. Gift and conquest. Among those important goods is freedom.
By our faith, we believe that God, in his sovereign freedom, has set us free. It could have been another way. We could be dependent, live subjugated… Faced with this, the Lord has wanted us free, with a freedom that could even turn towards Him. But it is the risk of freedom: in its search, it can be achieved, in love and responsibility, or it can close itself in deformations more or less far from good and truth. Because love without freedom would not be love, but submission.
The people of Israel had to learn to exercise their freedom. And, like everyone, he wasn’t always right. In today’s gospel, Jesus finds himself in a circumstance that will be repeated at various times in his life: the Pharisees cling to laws and customs, leaving aside more important things; and even preventing, sometimes, the good of people.
Jesus, in this trance, as in others, manifests himself as a free man. Without underestimating what is positive about the customs of a people, they must serve the good of the people, without rigidities that turn against good. That is why he reminds them that “The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath”.
In our context, freedom remains a gift and a task. There are many risks that threaten it: the indifference or arbitrariness of those who do not live responsibly; the search for self-interest as the main objective, which has no problem stepping on others to achieve it; or the extremes of living life in terms of “dependence” or “independence”, when in reality, we are called to live in “inter-dependence” on each other, serving our neighbors without being slaves to anything.
Thank you, Lord, for the gift of freedom.
May I grow in responsibility,
giving for free what I have received for free.
May I guide my life from truth and good,
because living from selfishness would be wasting my freedom.
Give me your Spirit, to live
to authentic freedom of the children of God. Amen.
Your brother in faith:
Luis Manuel Suárez CMF (@luismanuel_cmf)
1705396364
#Gospel #Reflection #Homily #Tuesday #January