From Archbishop Donoghue

School Mass at St. Joseph’s, Athens
October 30, 1998
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Dear Teachers and Students and all friends of St. Joseph School,

Sometimes the stories in the Gospel seem very strange to us, and this one goes by so fast, that we hardly have heard the first sentence or two, before the whole story is done and finished. And we are left asking questions - like, why was Jesus at the home of one of His enemies to have dinner in the first place, and why was it wrong to cure a man on the Sabbath Day.

The answer to the first question is very important for everybody who wants to be a follower of Christ - for one thing we always see about Jesus, is the fact that He was not afraid - He was not afraid to tell people what He thought, or to tell them what was right and what was wrong, and he was never afraid to do the right thing. Now these Pharisees that Jesus had agreed to have dinner with - they were always trying to trick Him. They were always trying to get Him to say something foolish, or something that didn’t agree with their law and their customs. They thought that if they could get Him to do this, then He would look foolish in front of the people, and they would give up on Him, and ignore Him. This is what the Pharisees wanted because they were always afraid that Jesus would stir up trouble among the people - that He would make the people believe differently from the way the leaders wanted them to believe, and that they would lose all their power as a result. But Jesus was not afraid of the traps they set for Him, because God was on His side, and He always had the right answer.

The first lesson then, that we take from this Gospel is that if we are to be followers of the Lord - if we want to live and to act as He did, then we too must never be afraid to say what is right and to do what is right. And we must never be afraid that anyone is going to trip us up or make us look foolish because we want to be good and do the right thing. Because if we trust God, and we trust Jesus, then They will take care of us - They will always inspire us to say the right thing and to do the right thing. This is part of what your teachers and your parents are trying to teach you as you grow up - trust God, trust His Son Jesus Christ - do what is right, and you will come out a winner in the end.

The second thing about this Gospel is probably even more important for us to learn, and I mean all of us - boys and girls, teachers, parents, and anyone who calls Himself a follower of Jesus and a Christian. You remember that the Pharisees tried to trip Jesus up, because in their law it was illegal to do any work on their Holy Day, the day they called the Sabbath - and even curing people of a sickness was considered work. So if they could get Jesus to go ahead and cure this poor man with dropsy, then they would also trick Him into breaking the law, and this would confuse the people, and they would be able to take Jesus to court, to humiliate Him, and maybe even to put Him in jail.

But Jesus uses a very simple argument to trick them in return. He says, “If you had a very valuable farm animal, and if it fell into a well or a hole in the ground, wouldn’t you go out and save it, even if it were the Holy Day, even if it were the Sabbath?”

Now in those days, the animals that people kept were very important - they provided food, and clothing, and the thread to make clothing with, and the skins that they stored water and wine in, and many other uses. In other words, the animals were vitally important because they helped people to have what they needed - they helped people to live. Of course, anybody would go out and save an animal they needed or even loved - suppose your dog or cat fell into a well - you wouldn’t worry about the law - you would hurry to rescue your pet, even if it were on a Sunday. Well this was not an animal - this was a poor sick man that Jesus wanted to cure of a terrible illness. If people can feel so strongly about the animals they keep, then shouldn’t they feel even stronger about the people they are supposed to love? I think so, and I think this is the second and very important lesson Jesus is teaching us - that nothing should stand in the way of our helping someone in trouble, and especially if that person’s life is in trouble. In today’s world, sometimes people are not very respectful of life - you all are old enough to know that, and you can’t grow up without learning that there are some very bad people in the world - people who have no feeling at all about how sacred life is. Jesus warns us about these people for two reasons - first, so that we keep our eyes open, so we will know when we happen to run in to one of them, and we can be on our guard - and second, Jesus wants us to be careful to never become like those people. He wants us to love our fellow man, and if anyone is in trouble, He wants us to come to their aid, to come to their rescue.

Dear boys and girls, I hope as you get older, you will depend more and more on what we can learn about our Lord in the Gospel, just as we have learned by listening today, and by thinking about what we have heard. And if you need help figuring it out, there are many people in the Church, and in your families, that you can ask for help and advice. But always remember - if you speak as Jesus spoke, if you act like He acted, then you will never go wrong - you will come through your problems OK, just as He did.

The last thing I’m going to say is this. The only thing more important than listening to Jesus and studying His life in the Bible is what we are about to do, and that is to meet Him now at this Mass, and in this Sacrament when we go to Holy Communion. For going to Communion is like feeding super powerful vitamins to our soul - it makes us better, it makes us stronger, it makes us closer to Jesus than anything else in the world - and I think of all the things that we might desire to be, this is the best - to be closer to Jesus and more like Him in every way.

God bless you all, and don’t forget to pray for me, and I will also pray for you, and for your families, and that we will all be safe and see each other again very soon.

GOSPEL: Luke 14: 1- 6

On a Sabbath [Jesus] went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees, and the people there were observing him carefully.

In front of him there was a man suffering from dropsy.

Jesus spoke to the scholars of the law and Pharisees in reply, asking, "Is it lawful to cure on the Sabbath or not?"

But they kept silent; so he took the man and, after he had healed him, dismissed him.

Then he said to them, "Who among you, if your son or ox falls into a cistern, would not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?"

But they were unable to answer his question.

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