THE TEXT BELOW IS THE TRANSCRIPTION OF THE VIDEO COMMENTARY BY FR. FERNANDO ARMELLINI

One Sabbath, he was walking through grain fields. As his disciples walked alongside him, they began picking the heads of grain and crushing them in their hands. Then the Pharisees said to Jesus: “Look! They are doing what is forbidden on the Sabbath!”And he said to them: 

“Have you never read what David did in his time of need, when he and his men were very hungry? He entered the House of God when Abiathar was High Priest and ate the bread of the offering, which only priests are allowed to eat. He also gave some to the men with him.”  

Then Jesus said to them: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is master even of the Sabbath.”Healing on the Sabbath

Again, Jesus entered the synagogue. A man with a paralyzed hand was there; and some people watched Jesus: would he heal the man on the Sabbath? If he did, they could accuse him.Jesus said to the man with the paralyzed hand: “Stand here, in the center.” Then he asked them: 

“What does the law allow us to do on the Sabbath, to do good or to do harm? To save life or to kill?” 

But they were silent.Then Jesus looked around at them with anger and deep sadness at their stubbornness. And he said to the man: 

“Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was healed. After the Pharisees left, they met with Herod’s supporters to find a way to destroy Jesus.

In Jesus’ time, the Sabbath began on Friday evening at sunset. At that hour, in every village, a manclimbed onto the roof of the house and sounded the horn three times. At the first call, field activities were suspended, and at the second call, work in homes was interrupted. Then, when the third star appeared in the sky, the person in charge sounded the horn for the last time. Every mother then placed a lighted lamp by the window of the house. It was a sign of a people’s joy who “would welcome” Saturday and received it with a lighted lamp, as with the bride, because Saturday was considered “the bride and queen of Israel” (Shabbatin Hebrew is feminine).

The rabbis had established: “The dress you wear on Saturday is not like that of every day; your walk on Saturday is not like that of every day; your business is prohibited, but heavenly affairs (solving religious issues) are allowed; your talking on Saturday is not like that of every day” (Bab. Shabbat, 113ab).

The festival’s focal point was the community’s morning gathering in the synagogue. There, they prayed and listened to the Word of God. After the celebration, they chatted, then went to lunch with friends. On Saturday, three meals were required, while on other days the poor ate a piece of bread in the morning and nothing else until dinner. It was recommended that other families be invited to one of the three meals. The door had to remain open to allow travelers, foreigners, and those without homes to come and join the celebration.

Saturday should be a day of overwhelming joy. If it were not for the mistake of assigning it a sanctity it doesn’t have, it would be a day like any other. A day becomes holy only when and to the extent that it promotes human sanctity, that is, helps one become aware of the relativity of his works and elevates him to God.

Since the provision “Do not do any work” (Deut 5:14) remained rather vague, the rabbis had begun todefine more precisely which activities were prohibited and had come to identify 39, each of which had thenreceived many specifications. So, 39 x 39 gives 1,521 prohibited works. Not only could one not plow, sow, reap, or light a fire, but even dissolving a knot, climbing a tree, or clapping the hands was forbidden. As if that were not enough, each of these works had been clarified in every detail; hence, an intricate casuistry. The most complicated was the ban on lifting weights: women were forbidden to wear earrings, and men were forbidden to wear shoes with nails, slippers that could easily slip off the foot, or to collect them, which would be a sin.

This is why the last words of the Mishna are: “the requirements regarding the Sabbath are like a mountain suspended by a hair: the Scripture says a few things, but the requirements are endless” (Hag 1:8).

Lived in this way, Saturday, more than a day of serenity, became a time of tension. It forced people toexert considerable effort to avoid infractions. The wisest among the rabbis realized and often repeated: “The Sabbath was put in your hands and not you in her” (Yomah 85b; Mekilta 31,13). Unfortunately, instead of wondering why it had become an unbearable burden, the rabbis were limited to devising legal measures to help the faithful avoid obligations and not incur punishment. For offenders, it was excommunication and, if they did not amend, also the death penalty.

As always happens when an institution is idolized and granted a divine prerogative, Saturday was given a form of worship, and so, as an expression of freedom, it was converted into an inhibitor of life, an instrument of alienation and slavery. It became an obstacle to the outbursts of love.

The Gospel today presents two episodes that sparked many disputes, from which the proper way to observe Saturday is clearly shown. To explain why the Lord has commanded: “Keep holy the Sabbath day” (Deut 5:12), Jesus goes back to basics.

The first dispute erupted when some Pharisees noticed that the apostles, on the Sabbath day in a field of grain, gathered ears of grain and ate them (vv. 23-28). It was not a robbery because the law allowed those crossing a field to pick fruit to satisfy their hunger (Deut 23:25-26). The charge against them was far more serious: violation of the Sabbath rest.

In response to the Pharisees’ criticism, Jesus quotes the example of David. Even this king, blessed by God, one day transgressed the law that forbade anyone who was not a priest from eating the loaves ofproposition that were in the temple. He did so because he and his men were hungry. The Bible refers to this episode without condemning him; it teaches that man’s hunger is above every law, both civil and religious.

The concluding sentence of the dispute is very significant: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man forthe Sabbath.” With it, Jesus recalls, first, that the Sabbath was established to “humanize” man, not toenslave him with absurd charges. Then he establishes a general principle that allows one to determine whenthe laws can be observed and when they (or even should) be violated, including those that seem the most sacred. The reference point is the person’s good. The provisions, laws, and precepts must be observed only if they favor the person’s life. Otherwise, they lose their binding force. Before God, what matters is the person, not the observance of precepts.

The second part of the passage (3:1-6) presents another dispute, more violent than the previous one,between Jesus and the Pharisees.

The event takes place in an unspecified synagogue in Galilee. A man with a withered hand is present at the meeting on Saturday. Nothing is said about his identity or name because it was of no interest. He is a man, and that is enough, a man who does not even request to be healed.

The evangelist Luke specifies that the right hand was invalid (Lk 6:6), which is most important. The man was unable to work, to be self-sufficient, or to give the best of himself in the exercise of all his capabilities.

Whoever has the withered, stiff hand is unable to work, to stroke, and, therefore, to express hisaffections. He cannot shake another’s hand to establish a friendly relationship or enter into a covenant. He cannot receive a gift and offer one; he cannot break bread with the hungry.

To cure one who has a paralyzed hand means to restore to him that part of humanity he lacks. Is it legal to do so on a Sabbath?

The rabbis taught that the Sabbath could be violated to help those in danger of death. They said: “You, to save a life, have to desecrate the Sabbath, so that the person to whom you save life, observes manySabbaths,” but this condition is not met in this case, because Jesus could have easily waited until eveningand thus, at the end of the day of rest, performed the healing.

Let’s see how he behaves. Faced with a man’s need and his unspoken plea for help, he takes the initiative to publicly violate the Sabbath law. He begins by ordering the man to stand in the middle, forcingeveryone to take a stand for or against him.

The scene is dramatic. Let us look at the characters: on the one hand, there is Jesus, who is guided onlyby love for humanity; on the other hand, there are those who worship the law and, for no reason, tolerate someone’s violation of it. 

Jesus’ question is provocative: “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or evil, to save life or to kill?” For him—and this must be emphasized—failing to help a person is equivalent to taking that person’s life.

A heavy silence follows. Nothing moves except the eyes of Jesus, browsing in clear defiance the faces of the “defenders of the law.”

Even Matthew and Luke refer to this episode, but only Mark notes that Jesus looked around at them withanger (v. 5). Clearly, the other evangelists have experienced some embarrassment at Christ’s reaction. They have refrained from reporting them. Instead, it is precious: it reveals God’s anger toward those who oppose the good of man.

While everyone is silent, Jesus tells the man, “Stretch out your hand.” The man stretches it and is healed(v. 5).

With this provocative action, Jesus declares that God does not accept placing restrictions on man. The person must take first place; everything else, including the most important of the laws, is at his service.

The passage ends by reporting the consequence of Jesus’s gesture: the Pharisees and the Herodians—religious and political powers—joined forces to get rid of him. His crime was introducing a revolutionary principle into the world: love for man as the supreme norm of every action. The “slaves of the law” could not tolerate anyone shrinking, in the name of freedom of love, from their impositions.

In the original order of creation, God, after separating the sky from the earth and the light from the darkness, also separated the days of work from those of rest.

Today, production rates, dictated by the law of competition, have become increasingly frenetic, and this distinction has been obliterated. One wonders how far man has benefited from it.

At the origin of the abstention from work on the “seventh day,” there was a humanitarian motivation; it is urgent to determine whether the interest in work has not again taken over and whether the rhythms of lifeare not out of hand for man, and then, in some way and to the extent possible, to recover the distinction ofdays willed by God.

There is another danger: that the “Lord’s Day” serves only to recover from the stress of the workweek, so one can start again, with more energy, the feverish activity in which one is involved. This is the snake bitingits tail. To be truly humanizing, the day of rest must also be free time devoted to the Lord, to meditation, and to prayer. People detach themselves from material occupations, especially to celebrate their freedom from things and to elevate the mind to God.