Saturday of the Twenty-Second Week of Ordinary Time

Lectio

    Luke 6:1–5

Meditatio

“Have you not read …?”

    Sometimes holy people can scandalize us. When David went into the Temple and took the consecrated “bread of offering” as food for himself and his warriors, wasn’t he acting like a law unto himself? Why, then, is Jesus pointing to him as an example?

    It’s all in how you read the story. As Saint Paul said, these things were written for our instruction (see 1 Cor 10:11), but the simple ability to read is not very helpful if we are unable to interpret the text. In the matter of the temple bread, David broke more than the letter of the Law or the later, protective wall of observances around it. It is as if David was reading something between the lines that the rest of us, like the Pharisees, couldn’t even see. Jesus implies that this is why David’s example is still valid and ought to be applied.

    David was a “man after [God’s] own heart” (1 Sam 13:14; see Acts 13:22). Like many saints after him, he had almost an intuitive sense of God’s purpose; a kind of communion of understanding and of will. And so, faced with his own hunger and that of his band, David acted as “lord” of the Temple bread, redirecting its purpose.

    In referring to David, Jesus was beginning a Copernican revolution of his own: it is not the Sabbath that is the sun around which the Law circles. It is he himself, Jesus, who is the Lord of the Sabbath, the center of gravity around which the Sabbath turns. When the Lord of the Sabbath is present, there is no need for others to “enforce” the Sabbath.

Oratio

    Lord, this story reminds me of the experiences of some of the saints, like Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, or Saint Teresa of Avila. They responded to you in radical ways, so much more intense than what people had come to see as “normal,” that these saints were themselves thought to be suspect in their orthodoxy (if not just plain crazy). Saint Paul said “the spiritual person … is not subject to judgment by anyone” (1 Cor 2:15). Who would have the criteria by which to judge people guided by the Holy Spirit? That is the ultimate interpretive key for Scripture—and for life. I want to learn how to read according to your own heart, so I can respond to you fully and freely in life. Open my mind today to your guidance and to your transforming power, and I will begin to know the true freedom of the children of God.

Contemplatio

    “All time belongs to him and all the ages. To him be glory forever” (from the Easter liturgy).

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ORDINARY GRACE Weeks 18–34: Daily Gospel Reflections (By the Daughters of St. Paul)