Monday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time
October 25, 2021
Monday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 479
Reading I
Brothers and sisters,
we are not debtors 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 those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear,
but you received a spirit of adoption,
through which 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 joint heirs with Christ,
if only we suffer with him
so that we may also be glorified with him.
Responsorial Psalm
- (21a) Our God is the God of salvation.
God arises; his enemies are scattered,
and those who hate him flee before him.
But the just rejoice and exult before God;
they are glad and rejoice.
R. Our God is the God of salvation.
The father of orphans and the defender of widows
is God in his holy dwelling.
God gives a home to the forsaken;
he leads forth prisoners to prosperity.
R. Our God is the God of salvation.
Blessed day by day be the Lord,
who bears our burdens; God, who is our salvation.
God is a saving God for us;
the LORD, my Lord, controls the passageways of death.
R. Our God is the God of salvation.
Alleluia
- R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Your word, O Lord, is truth;
consecrate us in the truth.
Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Jesus was teaching in a synagogue on the sabbath.
And a woman was there who for eighteen years
had been crippled by a spirit;
she was bent over, completely incapable of standing erect.
When Jesus saw her, he called to her and said,
“Woman, you are set free of your infirmity.”
He laid his hands on her,
and she at once stood up straight and glorified God.
But the leader of the synagogue,
indignant that Jesus had cured on the sabbath,
said to the crowd in reply,
“There are six days when work should be done.
Come on those days to be cured, not on the sabbath day.”
The Lord said to him in reply, “Hypocrites!
Does not each one of you on the sabbath
untie his ox or his ass from the manger
and lead it out for watering?
This daughter of Abraham,
whom Satan has bound for eighteen years now,
ought she not to have been set free on the sabbath day
from this bondage?”
When he said this, all his adversaries were humiliated;
and the whole crowd rejoiced at all the splendid deeds done by him.
Reflection: HEALING AND WHOLENESS
Paul reminds us today that it is through the Holy Spirit that we become the children of God, just as Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. We can now call God our Father, and Jesus our brother. He is son of God by nature but we by adoption. We belong to him. Heaven becomes our real home. The Holy Spirit becomes the guarantee that we shall get our inheritance. We are now members of the same family and have our share both in the suffering and in the glory. The Gospel today presents Jesus in a synagogue. He loved to pray with the people, to hear and explain the word of God. Jesus sees a crippled woman. Luke says that she had a spirit which crippled her and prevented her from straightening up. It was already eighteen years that she was in that situation. The woman does not speak, does not have a name, she does not ask to be cured, she takes no initiative. Jesus cures the woman. Immediately, she stands up and begins to praise the Lord. Jesus shows his enemies the true sense of the observance of the Law which is to liberate persons from the power of evil and to make them stand up, in order that they can render glory to God and praise Him. The teaching of Jesus confuses his enemies, but the crowds are filled with joy. There relation between standing up and praising the Lord. Peter's mother-in-law, once she was cured, she stands up and serves. From these two instances we can come to an understanding that 'to praise God is to serve our brothers and sisters.