DOING GOOD ON THE SABBATH

The crux of the drama of our Gospel passage this Sunday from chapter nine of St. John’s Gospel is the unfeeling resistance to the fact that Christ restored sight to the man born blind on the Sabbath. The religious authorities use this as a kind of pretext for opposing Jesus: “This man is not from God, because he does not keep the sabbath” (Jn 9:16). This is a recurring leitmotif throughout the Gospels, for example, in the story of the healing of the man with a withered hand in Matthew 12.

Jesus is driving at the divine logic of what the Sabbath means and what it was intended for; the Pharisees can only cling to their petty interpretations of the law that always cause them to ‘miss the joy’ of the healings that the Lord performs. This is particularly poignant in John 5 when the crippled man of thirty-eight years is healed just beside the Pool of Bethesda and told by Jesus to pick up his mat and walk. The Pharisees have no capacity to comprehend the indescribable joy of the newly restored man. He would not have moped along but must have skipped with pure delight. They can only say callously: “It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your bed” (Jn 5:10). But ironically, the man was obeying God Incarnate who told him to take the mat with him.

As Jesus went about doing good throughout the week, He had no problem doing good on the Sabbath too. And yet the challenge that His signs provided to the letter of the law would deeply trouble the sensibilities of at least some among the religious establishment.

Perhaps we should recall that one of the reasons the Lord had given the Sabbath was to help the Israelites discover that good had been done to them. The Sabbath rest and the various rules of the Mosaic Law which governed and protected it, ultimately pointed at the work which God had accomplished for His people in their Exodus from Egypt. They had been recipients of a great good. And if good had been done to them by Almighty God, might it not have been given in trust, that in turn they might come to do good unto others?

Through the Pascal Mystery of Jesus Christ, the Jewish Sabbath was, in a truly miraculous way, transformed and fulfilled in the Christian Sunday or Lord’s Day. Pope Benedict XVI called this transition one of the greatest proofs of the Resurrection. As we strive to live Sunday to the full, perhaps it would be worth reclaiming the various aspects of the meaning of the Sabbath. The section of the Catechism on the Third Commandment could be a good place to turn for this: paragraphs 2168-2195. First and foremost, Sunday is a day for “outward, visible, public, and regular worship,” as we give thanks for God’s wonderous goodness (Catechism, 2176).

But precisely because such good has been done to us in God’s saving work on our behalf, we cannot simply sit comfortably by but must embrace the works of mercy and consider that part of the dignity of Sunday is our ability to do good unto others (cf. CCC, 2185).

In this Lenten season, perhaps it is worth remembering that Sunday—while not a day for fasting—is certainly a day for both prayer and almsgiving or deeds of kindness and practical mercy. Proverbs 3:27-28 says it beautifully: “Don't hold back good from those who are worthy of it. Don't hold it back when you can help. Suppose you have something to give. Don't say to your neighbor, ‘Come back later. I'll give it to you tomorrow.’”

Let us love today, for love is the fulfillment of the law (cf. Gal 5:14).

~Fr. Howe