Readings for Friday, October 29:
Philippians 1:1-11
Psalm 111:1-6
Luke 14:1-6
He saved me because he loved me.
These words from Psalm 18 could well be the title of our readings for the day. Our gospel recounts another of those scenes wherein Jesus is shown challenging the teachings of the scholars and Pharissees. This time the Lord shows them - and us - that their strict observance of the law cast aside charity in the name of senseless obedience. This is a concrete example of what we hear elsewhere - that the great law is to love God, the second to love our neighbor. This act of love, says the Lord, ought to take precedence over the laws of men. As the Lord reaches out to the man with dropsy, He shows His love for him and cures all of his ailments. He saved him because he loved him. And the same can be said of us. Jesus had each of us in mind, consciously aware of each of one of us, as he lived His life and especially at His passion and death. That death was His ultimate sign of love and we too are called to die to ourselves and reach out in love to others who are need, to the suffering, the ill, and the poor. Surely we do these things to a degree already, but the Lord challenges us today to not be content where we are, but to grow in love. As we hear on the lips of St. Paul, "this is my prayer: that your love may ever more and more", so the Lord asks that we open our hearts even more to Him and to those that He puts into our lives.
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