Gospel: October 31, 2025

October 31, 2025 (Friday)

30th Week in Ordinary Time

Psalter: Week 2 / (Green)

Ps 147:12-13, 14-15, 19-20

Praise the Lord, Jerusalem

1st Reading: Romans 9:1-5

Gospel: Luke 14:1-6

One Sabbath Jesus had gone to eat a meal in the house of a leading Pharisee, and he was carefully watched. In front of him was a man suffering from dropsy; so Jesus asked the teachers of the law and the Pharisees, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” But no one answered.

Jesus then took the man, healed him, and sent him away. And he said to them, “If your lamb or your ox falls into a well on a Sabbath day, who among you doesn’t hurry to pull it out?” And they could not answer.

Reflection:

“Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?

“In their interpretation and application of the Jewish Law, the Pharisees followed a curious mix of excessive rigor in obeying some commandments or prohibitions along with subtle hair-splitting to find a way around other prohibitions.

This meant that they were overly strict on some matters, while the Sadducees found the Pharisees’ interpretation too lax on others.

Today’s Gospel focuses on healing on the Sabbath. Here the Pharisees are exaggerating a prohibition of the healing of minor ailments on the Sabbath, presuming that it prohibits all healing. This was not the case: one could certainly bind up a wound and attend to serious illnesses.

Christ was not breaking the Law in saving the man from his affliction of dropsy or edema, which in those times up to the nineteenth century was largely fatal, as it was a symptom of organ failure.

Here the Pharisees are putting obstacles in the way of due care and compassion. However, in matters of charity and justice, the love and due respect we pay to God, religion should never be a cause for not showing the love and due respect to one’s neighbor. Quite the opposite!