Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Jan 18 - Weekday in Ordinary Time

+ We see a continuation today of our gospel theme of Jesus’ healing.  Jesus, the Great High Priest, our first reading tells us, heals a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath.

Just what day of the week is an appropriate day to heal, or not to heal?

This healing, on this day, is met by the Pharisees’ hardness of heart, which cause Jesus anger and grief. What is so simple, and so obvious can sometimes be hijacked by what is dishonest and self-seeking.

“The Pharisees immediately then took counsel against Jesus to put him to death.” This about this? Death for doing a good deed, and a miraculous one at that – especially on a Sabbath – the day of the Lord of All Healings and Restorations, Renewals, Regenerations and Resurrections!

But Christ is anointed with “the power of a life that cannot be destroyed,” or even delayed. Jesus can and does heal when he wants to, so to demonstrate the power of the Resurrection – his Power over Death, Decay and Disease.

Our withered, hard hearts, if we choose to league in with the Pharisees, will be healed only by the piercing of Jesus’ Heart – and it will be pierced – and an ocean of mercy of forgiveness and compassion with gush forth from it: may we then be open, literally open of mind and heart to receive these life-restoring graces.

He is a priest forever, and a High Priest at that, in the line of Melchizedek.


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