THE SON OF MAN IS LORD OF THE SABBATH

Is 38,1-6.21 -22.7-8; C Is 38,10-12.16; Mt 12,1-8
20 JULY
The Law has come out of the heart of the Lord. According to his heart, it must be understood and lived. But man has a heart of stone. Never will he be able to know with it the Law according to the heart of the Father. He will not even be able to observe it, because the heart of stone is attracted by sin and by transgression. Concupiscence and pride are strong in it.

Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, sensual lust, enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life, is not from the Father but is from the world. Yet the world and its enticement are passing away. But whoever does the will of God remains forever (1Jn 2,15-17).

St. Paul reveals to us that man left to his nature is unable to understand the things of God. He must become a man according to the Spirit. Then he will understand and observe. Becoming persons according to the Spirit is the path of a whole life.

Yet we do speak a wisdom to those who are mature, but not a wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away. Rather, we speak God’s wisdom, mysterious, hidden, which God predetermined before the ages for our glory, and which none of the rulers of this age knew; for if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written: “What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him,” this God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit scrutinizes everything, even the depths of God. Among human beings, who knows what pertains to a person except the spirit of the person that is within? Similarly, no one knows what pertains to God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the things freely given us by God. And we speak about them not with words taught by human wisdom, but with words taught by the Spirit, describing spiritual realities in spiritual terms. Now the natural person does not accept what pertains to the Spirit of God, for to him it is foolishness, and he cannot understand it, because it is judged spiritually. The spiritual person, however, can judge everything but is not subject to judgment by anyone. For “who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to counsel him?” But we have the mind of Christ (1Cor 2,6-16).

Jesus, besides being true God, is also a true man. As a true man, he grows in wisdom and grace, wrapped entirely by the Holy Spirit. He is a true man according to the Holy Spirit. He can know the law according to the heart of the Father. This is why he is the Lord of the Sabbath, that is, he can say what can and cannot be done on it. Being a man full of the Holy Spirit, he is also full of the wisdom and intelligence of the Spirit of God and knows that some truths can be announced neither to Scribes and nor to Pharisees. However, having to justify his disciples, accused of having transgressed the Sabbath, he reminds them that even David due to hunger transgressed the law of the Lord, but no one has accused him of sin. On the contrary, it was the priest himself who offered him the sacred bread. On the Sabbath, even the priests work in the temple and do not break the law.

At that time Jesus was going through a field of grain on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “See, your disciples are doing what is unlawful to do on the Sabbath.” He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry, how he went into the house of God and ate the bread of offering, which neither he nor his companions but only the priests could lawfully eat? Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests serving in the temple violate the Sabbath and are innocent? I say to you, something greater than the temple is here. If you knew what this meant, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned these innocent men. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

The Law which is from the heart of the father must always be taught according to the heart of the Father.

Immaculate Virgin, Angels and Saints, keep us in the truth of the Gospel.