Law Must Lead To Love

Reflection on Lk. 13:10-17

When I was a seminarian, our Rector would post a note the week before final exams week advising us to study hard, and take care of our health. At the end of the note he says, "During Final Exam week, nobody is allowed to get sick!" Of course we knew that it was said in "tongue-in-cheek". Our Rector was reminding us that the coming week is very important that we can not afford to get sick. Unfortunately, this part of life is hard to control. All we can do is to avoid it in the best way we can. 

In the Gospel today, it seems that the leader of the synagogue, in his desire to implement the Sabbath, was serious in legislating sickness. Because Jesus cured on a Sabbath, he said to the crowd, "There are six days when work should be done. Come on those days to be cured, not on Sabbath Day." But Jesus would have nothing of it. For Him, anybody who is sick should be attended to immediately, Sabbath or no Sabbath. For Jesus, Sabbath was made for man and not man for Sabbath. Jesus showed the leader the real spirit behind the law on Sabbath. Yes, there must be a day dedicated to worship God, but the law of love prevails. The leaders of the synagogue was called hypocrites by Jesus because they too break the Sabbath, not for a neighbor, but for an ox or an ass! For them, the curing of a woman bounded by Satan for eighteen years is less important than caring for their animals. 

Laws are important. Even God gave us the Ten Commandments as guides towards our journey to the Kingdom. Every community, family, or group have laws and guidelines to assist them towards their destiny. Laws help us to obtain a discipline. Constant adherence to the law helps us imbibe the spirit of the law and later achieve the goal of the law. Once we obtain the discipline, our lives become free of the law. The law now becomes our way of life. It is similar to using a map in order to reach destinations when we are in an unfamiliar place. The more we frequent the place using the same route, the more we get familiar to it. We even get to know other ways of reaching the place. Once we have been used to it, the map becomes useless. Life is a lot similar to that.

Christian life includes following some laws. We go to mass every Sunday. Regular going to mass hopefully should lead us to appreciating its value in our life. The singing, the responses, the listening to the Word of God, holy communion, professing the Creed, etc., should slowly lead us to a deeper understanding of the mass. Every Sunday that we encounter the Lord Jesus, in His Word, in His Body, in His priest, and in our neighbors, we gain a closer and meaningful relationship with God. When we come to a point when every Sunday celebration is not a burden but a celebration anymore, then the law has now been replaced with Love. We become lovers. They say that "love is blind." There is truth to it but only in the context that lovers see deeper! Because of love, they are capable of acting more than what the law could offer. When love becomes the law, life becomes fully lived.