The Sabbath was made for man

TUESDAY 21 JANUARY (Mk 2,23-28)

What did David do when he was in need? Here’s what the Holy Scripture says: “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!”” (1Sam 21,2-10). David and his companions are hungry. The priest has nothing to offer them. But there are twelve sacred loaves before the Lord. No one could eat these breads, except the priests. In the face of hunger, having ascertained that they were ritually pure, he gives them the Lord’s bread to eat. Faced with a person’s vital, essential needs, all ritual laws are set aside and resumed when the need is over. Can you pick ears of corn for hunger on a Sabbath? No commandment of the Lord forbids these things. Even on a Sabbath, man feeds himself. The third commandment prohibits servile work. It asks for the rest of the earth and of all animals in the service of man. But it does not ask that for hunger one cannot take some fruit and sustain himself.

Being experts in filtering the gnat, the Pharisees were able to swallow all the camels of the transgression of the commandments – Jesus says that they are really very navigated in eluding the Law of the Lord – they rise against Christ the Lord, accusing him of being a bad Master. Certainly it is neither good, nor excellent, nor a perfect master who, seeing his disciples transgress the Sabbath Law, does not intervene, but rather allows it to be transgressed. Jesus replies that picking ears of corn does not break God’s Law in any way, just as David, out of hunger, ate the sacred bread and did not offend the Law of Moses. Then he adds that He is the truth of the Law and the truth of the interpretation of the Law. The whole Law of Moses must be read, understood and interpreted by his Law, by his Word and by his Commandments.

As he was passing through a field of grain on the Sabbath, his disciples began to make a path while picking the heads of grain. At this the Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” He said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions were hungry? How he went into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest and ate the bread of offering that only the priests could lawfully eat, and shared it with his companions?” Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. That is why the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”

It is truth. The entire Old Testament in every prescription, statute, law and commandment must be read, understood, interpreted and lived by the Word of Jesus and by the example that he left us. Appealing to the Law of Moses serves no purpose. That Law must be brought to the fulfillment that Jesus the Lord gave it. “I have not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfill them”: with these words, the doctrine of the Pharisees is declared out of course. It must be abandoned. It has no value.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints arrange that Jesus’ disciples fall in love with his Word.