Mt 5:27-32 Tear, throw away, cut it off

Jesus uses very harsh poignant language in today's reading.  To go against one's very nature is so incredibly hurtful.  In marriage the idea is that two become one.  To commit adultery is to go against one's self, to harm one's self.  True, there is the aspect of marriage of adultery, but one can also look at it as not being true to one's self, which is what calls us to live rightly in communion with God. 

There is a song called Trading My Sorrows by Darrel Evans that  reminds us that we ought to hear the Lord, not in the great sounds of the world around us or the rushing of the wind, but in that still small voice, where the Lord encourages us to be true to ourselves and him by turning toward him, and saying "Yes Lord."  When we do we trade our sorrows and shame for love and forgiveness.  We are not abandoned but lifted up.  The Lord reminds us not to commit adultery, so we must strive not be adulterous toward God by placing things before him, or before our commitment to doing right by ourselves, or others.  At the end of our lives, we don't answer to other people.  No, we meet God alone and have to answer for own words, actions, behavior.  How can we do this if we are pretending to be someone that we're not?  We must be ourselves, the people God intended.  There is great hope in this, and peace.  In being true to ourselves, it will lead us to a deeper connection and unity with the Lord, for it is only in him that we find ourselves.

Matthew 20: 17-28 The Request of Salome

All three readings, the first reading, the Psalm, and the Gospel share being plotted against, and trapped.  The Psalm it the universal lament of mankind that occasionally feels the world is against us.  We are not to despair.  The Pslam encourages us,

"You will free me from the snare they set for me,
for you are my refuge.
Into your hands I commend my spirit;
you will redeem me, O LORD, O faithful God."

Jesus himself is being plotted against.  In the Gospel he tells the Apostles that he will be handed over and condemned to death. 

In the reading too we hear Mary Salome, a disciple of Jesus and mother of James and John, begging that Jesus let her sons sit at his left and right when Jesus came into his kingdom.  She does not yet fully understand what she is asking.  Jesus points that out to her.  Then Jesus asks the Apostles if they are able to drink from the chalice from which he is to drink.  This is an intimate ancient gesture that binds people.  Jesus tells them that they will also drink from the same cup.  Jesus reminds them that humility is to be practiced, that they ought not to lord over others: that the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and that it is not for him to decide who is placed at his right and at his left in the Heavenly Kingdom.  That is the Father's role. 

And what of Mary called Salome?  She will come to understand as Christ is fully revealed to her as she stands with the Blessed Mother at the Crucifixion and is one of the women present at the tomb at the Resurrection. 

Mark 3:1-6 The Man with the Withered Hand

"Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath rather than do evil, to save life rather than destroy it?" Jesus asks in today's Gospel. 

How very dead and lifeless the Sabbath seems in Jesus' time as it has succumbed to merely following lifeless rules; that the idea of caring for and bringing new vitality to a person would seem so against what the priests ordain as godly, is absurd.  The Pharisees always seems to be plotting against Jesus, trying to trick him and trap him into doing something against their laws.  We get a real sense that the man with the withered hand was placed in the synagogue on the Sabbath to see if Jesus would heal him.  Jesus' words should have had a biting effect and made them feel shame.  They are intolerant of a man who has just healed another on the Sabbath and picked the grain from the field because he was hungry.  Now, they want him to "condemn" himself even more. 

Sometimes in our own lives we feel like this too, that the world is against us, that at moments we feel that we can't trust others.  The Gospel tells us that he felt righteous anger toward them and grieved at their hardness of heart.  Nonetheless Jesus cannot waiver in the love that he has for mankind.  He came to save us from the power of sin and death.  If a withered hand brought a form of death to this man, then he will heal this man and set him free from not only the physical infirmity, but also his sins.  Christ Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath.  As Christians we are called to be a pro-life people in all the forms that being pro-life may take, whether it is encouraging a friend, empowering children to be good stewards, respecting elderly persons, or upholding the dignity of the unborn child.  In this year of mercy, have you today followed Jesus by sharing His life with others? If not, what one thing can you do for someone else in God's name?  Remember, it doesn't have to be big, Jesus calls us where we are to work within our circles of friends and families first.  The Kingdom grows from there.