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Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

Saturday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time
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Gospel text (Lk 6:1-5): While Jesus was going through a field of grain on a Sabbath, his disciples were picking the heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands, and eating them. Some Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” Jesus said to them (...) “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

Sunday, the "Lord's Day"

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

Today, Jesus declares himself as "Lord of the Sabbath". With the “Sabbath” Jews celebrate the culmination of the "six days’ work" (the Creation). But for Christians a new day has dawned: the day of Christ’s Resurrection. The seventh day completes the first creation and on the eighth day begins the New Creation in Christ.

At the Last Supper the Lord already gave to his disciples His Body and His Blood as a gift of His Resurrection: both Cross and Resurrection are intrinsic to the Eucharist, and without them there would be no Eucharist. For this reason, it was necessary for the celebration of the sacrament to be connected with the memorial of the Resurrection. The first encounter with the risen One happens on the morning of the first day of the week —the third day after his death—, therefore, on Sunday morning: and, spontaneously, in the Christian liturgy it became the "Lord’s Day".

—O Jesus, the splendor of your redemption surpasses that of the first creation. O Lord, may you be praised forever and ever!