But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to the man, “Get up, and stand in the middle.” Then he spoke
to them, “I want to ask you: what is allowed by the law on the Sabbath? To do good or to do harm, to
save life or to destroy it?” And Jesus looked around at them all.
Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored,
becoming as healthy as the other. But they were furious, and began to discuss with one another
how they could deal with Jesus.
Reflect:
In August 2020, a Sunday edition of the Spanish newspaper El País carried a two-page story
on how, between 1940-1944 in the Nazi-occupied France, four Claretian missionaries in a Spanish
mission in Paris forged baptismal and matrimonial documents to help 155 Jews in France to pass
off as catholics in order to escape being caught and deported to concentration camps by the Nazis.
(Read thestory here: http://lightoftruth. in/coverstory/lying-for-thegospel/). Had the missionaries
been caught doing so then, they would have endangered not only their own lives, but also the
French-Spanish diplomatic relations, and probably triggered Nazi reactions against the Vatican
as well as catholics (as the Nazis did to the Dutch Church). They violated the Church laws as
well. But they did so at the behest of the Gospel. Tony de Mello once observed: “Obedience keeps
the rules; love knows when to break them.” Jesus would agree.
© Copyright Bible Diary 2022