Daily Gospel Reflection
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January 22, 2025
Jesus entered the synagogue.
There was a man there who had a withered hand.
They watched Jesus closely
to see if he would cure him on the sabbath
so that they might accuse him.
He said to the man with the withered hand,
“Come up here before us.”
Then he said to the Pharisees,
“Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil,
to save life rather than to destroy it?”
But they remained silent.
Looking around at them with anger
and grieved at their hardness of heart,
Jesus said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.”
He stretched it out and his hand was restored.
The Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel
with the Herodians against him to put him to death.
Throughout my many years of teaching at various grade levels, it was always important at the beginning of each school year to establish classroom expectations and rules that could guide us together as a cooperative unit. Input from the students was crucial in creating our classroom environment, and it was fascinating to observe how the systems they created reflected their own levels of moral development.
The littlest ones tended to offer up very specific family rules from home, and a good amount of creative guidance was needed to blend these sometimes contradictory strictures. As they gained more independence, their lists tended to integrate better their responsibilities as part of the classroom whole.
They began to question the reasons behind each classroom rule. They began to understand that rules can be “broken” when the reason behind the rule is not honored. This growing moral maturity produced a deeper understanding of the difference between a law and a rule, that rules are created only in service to the spirit of the law, whether the law is that of classroom harmony or the sacred law of the divine.
Life would be so easy if we only had to follow a list of rules. Unfortunately, as Mark’s Gospel highlights, there is usually nothing easy or singularly correct regarding our choices in life. Jesus chose to break a particularly sacred Jewish directive written to ensure that the Law of Moses was honored. As often happens, though, the reason behind the law can be overshadowed by and subjugated to the letter of the law.
Sometimes we need to make the hard choice to courageously break rules in order to reverence the law itself, as Jesus chose to do when he was so moved with compassion on the Sabbath. Be brave!
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!