September 07, 2019

Gospel: Luke 6:1-5
One Sabbath Jesus was going through a field of grain, and his disciples began to pick heads of grain, crushing them in their hands for food. Some of the Pharisees asked them, “Why do you do what is forbidden on the Sabbath?” Then Jesus spoke up and asked them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his men were hungry? He entered the house of God, took and ate the bread of the offering, and even gave some to his men, though only priests are allowed to eat that bread.” And Jesus added, “The Son of Man is Lord and rules over the Sabbath.”

Reflections
“Pick heads of grain . . . for food.”
In his book The Gospel of Life: Following Christ, Together, on the Path to Holiness, Pope Francis described St John Paul II’s notion of the “paradox of abundance” as the “[situation] in which there is food for everyone, but not every- one can eat, while waste, exces- sive consumption and the use of food for other purposes is visible before our very eyes.” There is, indeed, food for everyone. The Earth produces, in its abundance, all that every form of life needs to survive. Humanity and other li- ving species take their foodstuffs from the Earth. That is why to des- troy the ecosystem of the Earth and its biodiversity, and to inter- vene with its natural processes, is to deprive people, particularly the poor, of their daily sustenance and source of livelihood.
When we consider the imba- lance in the distribution and use of the Earth’s resources we might ask: If our present world economic system works for the health and well-being of all the Earth’s living inhabitants and if the progress it claimed to have achieved truly benefit humanity, then why does the poor sector of the world con- tinue to increase and poverty is on the rise; and, why does the gap between the poor and the rich of the world continue to widen.

© Copyright Bible Diary 2019