Lord of the Sabbath

"I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath" (read Matthew 12:1-8).

Many Catholics still confess that they have not gone for Sunday Mass because they had been sick. Or they might even confess that they have not kept a few rules because of some reasons. Yet others confess all the rules that they have broken, but forget to think about the weighter matters of our religion: love. "Have I loved sufficiently? Have I given space to love and compassion in my life?" I realise that I am not loving very well. I am meeting only my needs, which is nothing but “co-dependency.” This kind of love is impure and self-seeking. Perhaps a lot of what we call love today is not love at all. I think this kind of consciousness should be the context for our confessions, not merely our breaking of rules.

I'm afraid, for many of us, Christianity is a mere collection of rules. We seem to miss the whole point. We seem to miss the central aspect, the Person that makes our religion. Do we follow the Lord of the Sabbath or just the Sabbath of the Lord?

Following Christ is about desiring mercy and compassion; it is about supporting the innocent and having a big heart for others. Big-heartedness always draws close to the other, and it always draws the other close. Our God is a God of love. He is a God of relationships. If God is Trinity, then God is Absolute Relationship, even inside of God. (And the truest relationship is love.) And every time God shows mercy and forgives, He is saying that relationship is more important than His own rules!

Let our religion be one of relationships: with ourselves and with one another, with creation and with nature, and with God. Our relationships give meaning to our life. As Jesus gave primacy to relationships, let us also give first place to them in our lives.