A Catholic pastor-friend of mine was horrified one Sunday morning to discover that the collection of Baccarat Crystal chalices stored in the sacristy of his church had been smashed to pieces. A parishioner confessed to destroying the objects, so certain was he that the Church’s liturgical laws required them to be made of gold or silver. Had the man done his homework, he’d have learned that the guidelines concerning sacred vessels make ample provision for materials other than precious metals. He might also have realized how much his preoccupation with the “rules” of Catholic worship was blinding him to the larger good for which they ultimately exist.

The group of experts on Jewish law of Jesus’ time described in today’s Gospel suffered from the same blindness (Luke 14:1-6). So fixed were they on Jesus’ Sabbath-day behaviors that they missed entirely the goodness found in the medical cure he performs on a fellow guest in the home of a prominent Pharisee. Aware he’s being scrutinized, Jesus poses a handful of questions to his detractors intended to make them judge which, in the end, is more consistent with God’s will—strict adherence to the numerous, man-made laws of their religion or fidelity to the Law, divine in origin, that should compel them to be true caretakers of each other.

Religious rules can be useful, as far as they go. However, I’ve never known a catechist to hand the Code of Canon Law to an aspiring Catholic and suggest that simply memorizing its contents will make them grow in holiness.

“Love fulfills the law,” Saint Paul famously insisted (Romans 13:10), which, in light of today’s Gospel, we all might want to ponder with some care.

Let Us Pray:

Lord, forgive us for those times when, by being too “rule-conscious” in our faith, we fail to be “relationship-conscious.”