30th Week in Ordinary Time
30th October 2023 (Monday) Readings and Reflection
Psalter: Week 2
Reading of the Day
First Reading: Romans 8:12-17
So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
Psalm 68:2 and 4, 6-7ab, 20-21 (R. 21a)
R/. This God of ours is a God who saves.
Alleluia
V/. Alleluia R/. Alleluia
V/. Your word, O Lord, is truth; sanctify us in the truth..
R/. Alleluia
Gospel : Luke 13:10-17
At that time: Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.” And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God. But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, “There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.” Then the Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?” As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.
Daily Gospel Reflection
The Reflection by Fr. Thumma Mariadas Reddy MSFS{alertWarning}
Highlight: Are you really free?
Guidlines: True freedom is not really the possibility to have one’s own way of likes and pleasures. True freedom is to be released from slavery to sin{alertSuccess}
1. Freedom is a priced gift in human life. Nothing can match it. Slavery is always resented and resisted. The reason is it reduces human dignity and respectability. It restricts and restrains one’s scope to pursue what one likes and prefers.
2. Slavery and bondage make the person bound and burdened. Therefore, there is always the struggle to extricate oneself from all the forces and pressures that try to subdue a person’s free spirit.
3. The desire to be free is natural and needed. But the problem with many is a wrong understanding of freedom and false ways and means to gain it. For many, freedom is just the license to do whatever one prefers and prefers.
4. Accordingly, freedom is equated with unbridled seeking comfort, pleasure and gratification. In concrete, it will amount to indiscipline, irresponsibility, disorder, self-gain and self-pleasure. Thus, in the name of freedom, there is so much disrespect, defiance and rebellion, so much violence and destruction. But this is all false freedom.
5. It is in this context, God’s word and Jesus clarify to us what is true freedom. True freedom is liberation from sin and evil. In Paul’s words in Romans 8. 12-17, it is freedom from slavery to flesh; it is to put to death the deeds of the body. It is to live according to the Spirit. It is to be the children and heirs of God. It is to be led by the Spirit of God.
6. This is what Jesus indicates in the healing of a woman who had had a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years. Both the cause and effect of this infirmity are explicitly mentioned. The cause is Satan.
7. This becomes clear in Jesus’ healing words: “Ought not this woman whom Satan bound for 18 years be loosed from this bond?” The effect is: that she was bent over and could not fully straighten herself.
8. This is very true. Sin sickens us. It bends us to be curved and crooked. It takes away the true freedom to enjoy the health and the joy of life. We need to be freed from our longstanding sicknesses, mainly the moral and the spiritual. We need to become straight and upright in our walking.
Practice: Sin and evil are the greatest infirmities. They make us bent and stumble. We need healing. Jesus is ever willing. Are we ready to receive his healing touch?{alertSuccess}