Dominican Sisters of St Cecilia Retreat, Motherhouse Nashville Tn., July 17, 2026
“Put your affairs in order and get ready to die,” the prophet says in his rather unornamented way (Isa 38:1-8,21-22). It’s good advice for anyone, but especially a terminally ill person like Hezekiah. In response, the good king ‘goes on retreat’ like we do this week. He retires from worldly affairs to his bedchamber, and pours out his heart to the Lord, with words and tears…
And WOW, what an answer he gets! Suffering an incurable condition one day, he is totally cured three days later. At life’s end one minute, given fifteen years extension the next. About to suffer invasion by the Assyrians any second, then suddenly delivered as King Sennācherib wakes to find all 185,000 of his soldiers dead and himself about to join them (Isa ch. 37). If all that weren’t enough to persuade Hezekiah—and us—of God’s love and power, God orders the sun to reverse its course for a time…
Spectacular stuff all this, the sort of dramatic answers you might expect when a group of Nashvillains goes on retreat! But it’s really no surprise that creation obeys its Creator or that the Legislator of the laws of nature is not bound by them Himself.
Our Gospel highlights another set of divine laws and exceptions (Mt 12:1-8). As Jesus strolls through the cornfields, His peckish mates pluck and eat some ears of grain. Seems trivial to us, but some first century Jews judged this more like harvesting than snacking. And if a breach of the Day of Rest were not bad enough, the Rabbi did not seem to care. “Gottcha Jesus!” His enemies say.
But He was not to be outfoxed by these canonists. In all His debates with the authorities, Jesus never rejects the Mosaic Law; indeed, He insists He came to fulfil it (Mt 5:17-18). He criticises them, not for being religiously observant, but for being hypocritical, demanding one thing of others and something different of themselves. He also accuses them of weaponising God’s Law rather than making it livable. Third, of obsessing about outward show rather than going to the heart of what the Law seeks to protect. Fourthly, of being externally righteous but corrupt within. Fifth, of focusing on justice to the exclusion of mercy. And lastly, of leading people astray when they should be setting a good example.[1]
Jesus was, in fact, an observant Jew himself, from a Torah-abiding family. He was taken to the Temple at His birth and throughout His childhood. At age 12, He knew the Law so well He could teach the scribes a thing or two. As an adult, He preached in the synagogue on the Sabbath. He was a model of righteous living as the Jews understood it.[2] And today, rather than belittling the Sabbatarian laws, Jesus joins the debates about their interpretation, offering some rabbinical reasoning of His own. But, on first hearing, His arguments seem rather flimsy…
First, Jesus says David, though a layperson, ate the holy bread reserved for priests, so there are exceptions. But David was the Lord’s anointed, fleeing for his life and starving (cf 1Sam 21:1–6); the apostles snacking on popcorn on the way to church seems rather casual by comparison. Surely Jesus is not saying the Law doesn’t apply when you are hungry? We wouldn’t want people treating the Eucharistic ‘Bread of the Presence’ as snack food…
Next, Jesus notes that, far from closing up shop on the Sabbath, priests rightly work overtime on the Sabbath; so, again, the day of rest isn’t absolute. But if ministers and healers can work on Sundays, it hardly follows that it’s a free-for-all. In Dies Domini,[3]
St John Paul II says we must recover and observe Sabbath rest…
Jesus’ third response is to quote Hosea on God preferring mercy to sacrifice (Hos 6:6). But does that mean God wants no sacrifice at all? No praise, worship, self-denial? Taken to its extreme, this would negate Christ’s self-offering in the Eucharist and on the Cross, and our own self-offering at Mass and in religious life…
Which brings us to Jesus’ clincher, His real answer to His interrogators: “the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” Jesus knew that for His Jewish contemporaries only Yahweh was Lord of the Sabbath.[4] Who was this man, they would have wondered, that he thinks he can contradict the decrees of Holy Scripture and make himself the equal of the Lord God?
Who, indeed?
Well, there is much we could say about Jesus’ midrash today. Stories like this one helped the early Church navigate the tensions between human justice and that justice of the Kingdom we call ‘mercy’; between fidelity to the absolute and flexibility with the rest; between preserving the best of the Old Israel and discerning the requirements of the New Israel; neither laxly engaging in spiritual tax avoidance, nor so rigidly observing rules that they are discredited.[5] Interestingly, Jesus Himself picks no corn today, even though He is Lord of the Sabbath, even though He sometimes healed on the Sabbath.[6] So the question for Him was not whether the Sabbath should be kept holy, but how…
For “the law is made for man, not man for the law,” as Jesus had already said regarding the Sabbath (Mk 2:27). The rules are there to protect fundamental values like life, love, and religion, to shape our response, to help cultivate character and to encourage good behavior. And that means morality is no algorithm: there must be practical reasoning and discernment. Aristotle had already observed that slavishly applying a law can undermine its purpose and respect for law more generally. If someone asks for their knife and you know they intend to do violence with it, Aristotle says you should refuse to return the knife.[7] Aquinas integrated this virtue of epikeia into Christian moral theology, giving law a context of virtue and the common good; interpretation and application according to principled mercy are required; in some circumstances, a law will be non-binding, even no law at all.[8]
Of course, we have to be careful when and how we say this. Tell a child there are exceptions to the rules and they will always regard themselves as the exception. There is probably some adolescent exceptionalism in all of us! A self-willed lawlessness is a greater temptation in modernity than a rigorist absolutism. In our individualistic culture, the guardrails essential to common life and individual flourishing are regularly flouted.
Which brings us to the role of the Church in regulating the Sabbath, the liturgy, the calendar. Today’s Gospel is deeply ecclesial. Jesus speaks for His little company of disciples, the nucleus of His Church. They need pointers on interpreting and applying, making and breaking the law. They will enjoy freedom and responsibility under the new covenant, a new Sabbath, new patterns of worship.[9] But that does not make willfulness conscience or conscience king: theirs must be a well-formed conscience; their minds and wills must be conformed to His.[10]
In every age the Church receives God’s Law as a gift and helps people apply it responsibly, to live it with mercy, to look to the common good of Church and society. And the regulation of the celebration of Eucharist, the Holy Bread of the Real Presence, is a crucial example of the Church doing this, providing scope for local variety and individual piety, while uniting us as one Church, offering one great sacrifice of praise.
[1] Jesus on hypocrisy for teaching one thing and doing another: Mt 23:1-3,13,24,29-32 etc. On weaponizing the Law of God and doing nothing to lighten the burdens of living righteously: Mt 23:4. On caring about the externals of observance rather than going to the heart of that which the Law seeks to protect and effect: Mt 6:1-18; 23:5-7,13-22,25-28; Jn 5:9-18; 8:1-11. On attending to God’s justice but not His mercy: Mt 9:13; 12:7; 18:33; 23:23; Lk 10:37. On leading others to disobey the Law: Mt 18:6; Lk 17:2.On minimizing Laws that they should be taking more seriously and living more perfectly: Mt 5:17-48; Jn 7:22-23.
[2] Jesus’ family does for Him all that the Torah prescribes: Lk 2:21-42. Jesus in the synagogue on the Sabbath: Mt 12:9ff; Mk 1:21; 3:1; 6:2; Lk 4:16,31; 6:6; 13:10; 14:1. Jesus the law-abiding/righteous: Mt 3:15; 22:16; Mk 12:14; Lk 20:21; 23:47; Jn 16:8-10.
[3] St John Paul II, Dies Domini: Apostolic Letter on Keeping the Lord’s Day Holy (1998), 4, 8, 10-11, 15-17, 63-68 etc.
[4] Gen 2:2-3; Ex 16:23; 31:15; 35:2; Lev 19:3; 23:3; Dt 5:14-15 etc.
[5] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, bk. V, chap. 10.
[6] Mt 12:9-14; Mk 1:21-34; 3:1-6; 6:2,5; Lk 4:31-41; 6:6-11; 13:10-17; 14:3-6; Jn 5:1-18; 7:21-24; 9:13-41.
[7] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, bk. V, chap. 10.
[8] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Ia–IIae, q. 96, a. 6
[9] Lk 22:20; Rom 8:21; Gal 5:1,13; 1Cor 9:19; 10:23-33; 11:25; 2Cor 3:17.
[10] Rom 8:6,27-29; 12:2; 1Cor 2:16; Eph 4:24-25; 6:6; Phil 2:5; Col 3:10; 4:12; Tit 1:15.
