The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath

7 SEPTEMBER (Lk 6,1-5)

While David was fleeing from Saul, who wanted to kill him, he asks only for some food to the priest that guarded the Ark of the Covenant. Having nothing to give him, the priest gave him holy bread, so that he and all his companions ate it. A ritual law is disregarded due to hunger. What is of the Lord is given to man. Out of necessity.

Then David departed on his way, while Jonathan went back into the city. David went to Ahimelech, the priest of Nob, who came trembling to meet him and asked, “Why are you alone? Is there no one with you?” David answered the priest: “The king gave me a commission and told me to let no one know anything about the business on which he sent me or the commission he gave me. For that reason I have arranged a meeting place with my men. Now what have you on hand? Give me five loaves, or whatever you can find.” But the priest replied to David, “I have no ordinary bread on hand, only holy bread; if the men have abstained from women, you may eat some of that.” David answered the priest: “We have indeed been segregated from women as on previous occasions. Whenever I go on a journey, all the young men are consecrated – even for a secular journey. All the more so today, when they are consecrated at arms!” So the priest gave him holy bread, for no other bread was on hand except the showbread which had been removed from the Lord’s presence and replaced by fresh bread when it was taken away. One of Saul’s servants was there that day, detained before the Lord; his name was Doeg the Edomite, and he was Saul’s chief henchman. David then asked Ahimelech: “Do you have a spear or a sword on hand? I brought along neither my sword nor my weapons, because the king’s business was urgent.” The priest replied: “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the Vale of the Terebinth, is here (wrapped in a mantle) behind an ephod. If you wish to take that, take it; there is no sword here except that one.” David said: “There is none to match it. Give it to me!” That same day David took to flight from Saul, going to Achish, king of Gath. But the servants of Achish said, “Is this not David, the king of the land? During their dances do they not sing, ‘Saul has slain his thousands, but David his ten thousands’?” David took note of these remarks and became very much afraid of Achish, king of Gath. So, as they watched, he feigned insanity and acted like a madman in their hands, drumming on the doors of the gate and drooling onto his beard. Finally Achish said to his servants: “You see the man is mad. Why did you bring him to me? Do I not have enough madmen, that you bring in this one to carry on in my presence? Should this fellow come into my house?” (1Sam 21,1-16).

The priest makes a noble reasoning. The breads are not needed by the Lord. He does not eat and does not touch them. He is not hungry. David is hungry. He needs nourishment. He repeals the ritual law in the name of charity, of love and of mercy toward man. Always the ritual law must be repealed when charity must reign. Charity has no law. The commandments of God are always the law of justice, charity, mercy and compassion toward man. Even the first three commandments concerning directly God are in function of man. Only the person who owns and lives the whole truth of God, might live all the charity and justice towards man.

While he 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.”

The truth of the Sabbath is not the ritual law, the tradition of men is not, all those additions to the law of the Father are not. The truth of the Sabbath is charity. Christ, who is Lord of the Sabbath, is the man of charity, he is the person that is all the charity. By now, it is his charity the only hermeneutic principle of all Ancient Scripture, of every tradition or custom in the people. But this principle of hermeneutics applies also for the New Testament. Charity is the only law interpreter of every other law. Every contravention to charity, is a contravention to the whole law of God. Who observes charity observes the whole law of the Lord. Other principles are false and deceitful.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints teach us the true charity.