Readings: Colossians 1:24-2:3; Psalm 52; Luke 6:6-11
It is Labour Day and I want to continue my reflection of yesterday’s homily but with a slightly different twist. I said something like this: Jesus took the deaf man away from the crowd to be with Him alone, showing that Jesus desires to know each of us individually, personally because he cares for you and me. And we are called to develop an intimate relationship with him if we expect to be healed, to be transformed and to become, as Henri Nouwen once called human beings, Wounded Healers.
Jesus reminds us in the Gospel to keep the Sabbath holy. In a society so filled with busyness, and activity, (distractions to spiritual life), there is one thing we all need, that is, more time to pray, to relax, to recreate with God and with loved ones a more beautiful world. That includes honouring the Sabbath and those special days when we celebrate God’s love in creation, like today, Labour Day, remembering God’s “labour of love” and ours. But the Gospel also reminds us that even good practices and traditions can become corrupted if they are separated from the two great commandments: to love God and to love our neighbour as ourselves. We cannot separate these two parts of the one great command. We cannot keep the sabbath holy by honoring God, and at the same time not helping a neighbour in need. We love the God we cannot see by our love of neighbour. In the story, while the Pharisees show no concern for the man with the withered hand, and are obsessed that Jesus “broke the Law”, Jesus is the only one who turns his gaze to that man. Jesus directs Sabbath-keeping toward healing.
We are challenged by the Gospel this Labour Day to reflect more deeply on what it means to “keep holy the Sabbath”, our call to holiness. We have many witnesses. We can think of modern-day “saints”: Damien the Leper, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dorothy Day, Brother Andre, especially St. (Mother) Teresa of Calcutta, whose feast day was yesterday, September 5. There are few Christians who better embodied “holistic holiness” than Mother Teresa: she spent hours in prayer so that she and her fellow Missionaries of Charity could devote themselves fully to the dying destitute of Calcutta, India. Blessings, as we discern our Sabbath call.