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Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

Tuesday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time
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Gospel text (Mk 2:23-28): As he was passing through a field of grain on the sabbath, his disciples began to make a path while picking the heads of grain. At this the Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the sabbath?” He said to them (...), “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. That is why the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.”

The real "rest" of Saturday

EDITORIAL TEAM evangeli.net (based on texts by Benedict XVI) (Città del Vaticano, Vatican)

Today, we consider the true meaning of “Sabbath”. Saturday is a symbol of a love Alliance between God and man. The creation is conceived, precisely, as a space for the Alliance, as a meeting place between God and man, as a place to worship.

The true worship, the true offering to God cannot be the destruction of something (to sacrifice an animal for example), but the union of man and the creation with God. Belonging to God has nothing to do with destruction or the “non-being”, but rather a way of being (“to be with God”). Sabbath intends to participate in the rest and with the peace of God. Celebrating Saturday means to return to the origins, clean up the pollution that our works have produced, but when man refuses the “leisure of God” (worshipping) then he becomes a “business slave”.

—Lord, may nothing be installed before Your service.

April 21st
Fourth Sunday of Easter (B)

Gospel and commentary video