Daily Gospel Reflection
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January 22, 2020
Jesus entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him.
And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.” Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent.
He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.
The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.
In the verses immediately preceding today’s Gospel, Jesus tells the Pharisees that “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath; so the Son of man is lord even of the sabbath” (Mark 2:27-28).
We learn from the Genesis creation story that it is God who gives us life and sustains us in being at every moment. The seventh day of creation, the sabbath, was made to continually call us back to the Lord of all in whom we find true rest.
When Jesus claims to be lord of the sabbath, he expresses his oneness with God the Father and thus points to himself as the one who brings the fullness of life. His healing of the man with a withered hand demonstrates this reality.
As biblical scholar Dr. Mary Healy has noted, all of the healings that Jesus initiates in all four Gospels occur on the sabbath! Jesus’ physical healings point to the complete restoration that he accomplishes for us in his death and Resurrection and that we experience only through union with him.
On this Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children, Mark’s Gospel reminds us that life is a gift given to us freely by God and that our lives belong to God. Because of this, each and every life is sacred.
The tragedy of abortion in our current context undermines these truths. However, as Jesus’ healing of the man with a withered hand teaches us, our value is determined by the fact that we are created for communion with God, and that Jesus died to make this possible. Let us proclaim, according to the Gospel of Life, that all lives are equally valuable and worth protecting!
Prayer
Lord God, the fact that your detractors were observing you, hoping for you to make a mistake, did not deter you from being compassionate and loving as you healed the man with the withered hand. Give us today the same boldness to be compassionate and loving, no matter the cost. We pray this to you, Our God and our Teacher. Amen.
Saint of the Day
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has designated today as a National Day of Prayer for the Protection of the Unborn.
People of all faiths—including Notre Dame faculty, staff, students, and alumni—customarily gather in Washington, D.C. to participate in the March for Life on this day. Thousands will gather to witness to what it means to walk with a woman who is pregnant and vulnerable.
Several saints are patrons for the Right to Life movement. St. Maximilian Kolbe is one of them—he was a Polish Franciscan priest who was imprisoned in 1941 and sent to a concentration camp for speaking out against the Nazis. When a fellow prisoner—a husband and father—was selected for execution in the camp, Maximilian stepped forward to take his place. With nine other prisoners, he was locked in a starvation chamber and eventually executed.
Our Lady of Guadalupe is another patron of the Right to Life movement. In 1531, she appeared to Juan Diego, an indigenous Indian living near what is now Mexico City. She appeared to him as an indigenous woman herself and spoke to him in his native language. She left him a miraculous sign—her image imprinted on his cloak. In the image, she appears with a black band around her waist—a custom symbolizing her pregnancy.
Patron saints of the Right to Life movement, pray for us that we might build a culture of life!