Monday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time
God, Our Father
Liturgical Cycle: C | Lectionary Cycle: I
Introduction
We are sons and daughters of God because the Spirit of Christ, the perfect Son, is alive in us. With Christ and through his Spirit, we can call God our Father. He is a father with a love warm and tender as that of a mother. God is not a paternalistic Father. He respects our freedom. He wants us to be responsible and mature and to give him a free answer of love. He wants us to serve him as spiritual people, that is, people moved by the Spirit, without any slavish attitude.
The stooped woman whom Jesus cured is just one sample of his love. Again, the legalists protest because Jesus cured a sick person on the Sabbath. Jesus appeals to their common sense. The Sabbath is a day of God, a day on which we remember the goodness of God and thank him for his love. Isn’t the day of the Lord the best day on which we can pass on the love of the Lord to one another and create one another anew?
Opening Prayer
God, your Spirit makes us cry out to you:
“God, our Father!”
Do not allow us any longer
to serve you in slavery to any law
but in a spirit of sons and daughters,
all your children,
that makes us go far beyond the law.
Yes, make us see and practice
that we are committed to your person
through bonds of love
in response to your gratuitous love
which sought us out personally
even before we were aware of it.
We thank you for being our Father
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 68:2 and 4, 6-7ab, 20-21
R. (21a) Our God is the God of salvation.
God arises; his enemies are scattered,
and those who hate him flee before him.
But the just rejoice and exult before God;
they are glad and rejoice.
R. Our God is the God of salvation.
The father of orphans and the defender of widows
is God in his holy dwelling.
God gives a home to the forsaken;
he leads forth prisoners to prosperity.
R. Our God is the God of salvation.
Blessed day by day be the Lord,
who bears our burdens; God, who is our salvation.
God is a saving God for us;
the LORD, my Lord, controls the passageways of death.
R. Our God is the God of salvation.
Alleluia Verse
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Your word, O Lord, is truth;
consecrate us in the truth.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Jesus was teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath,
and just then there appeared a woman who an evil spirit had caused to be bent for eighteen years, preventing her from straightening up at all.
Seeing her, Jesus called her over and said:
“Woman, you are freed from your infirmity.”
Then he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight and praised God.
But the ruler of the synagogue was angry because Jesus had performed this healing on the Sabbath day, and he said to the people:
“There are six days for work. Come on those days to be healed, not on the Sabbath!”
But the Lord replied:
“You hypocrites! Everyone of you unties his ox or his donkey on the Sabbath and leads it out of the barn to give it water.
And here you have a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound for eighteen years. Should she not be freed from her bonds on the Sabbath?”
When Jesus said this, all his opponents felt ashamed. But the people rejoiced at the many amazing things that happened because of him.
Prayers of the Faithful
– For the Church, the body of Christ, that it may not be divided into factions and that it may become to all a sign of unity and love, we pray:
– For the whole wide world, that all peoples may discover that God loves them tenderly as his sons and daughters, we pray:
– For all of us, that we may forgive one another from the heart, seek no revenge, bear no grudges, and learn to see others as people loved by the same Father, we pray:
Prayer over the Gifts
Great and holy God,
we may call you Father
for we are truly your sons and daughters.
God, accept our thanks
through Jesus, your Son,
who came among us
to make us your children.
As he will be with us
in these signs of bread and wine,
may he give us a deeper spirit
of being your sons and daughters
that we may serve you as he did,
with a love that does not weigh the cost
but is always responsive to your love for ever.
Prayer after Communion
God, our Father,
as we go back to our work and to people,
may your Spirit be truly our guide in life.
As the Spirit of love, may he help us
to see the needs and sufferings of those around us,
to feel with them and to help them;
as the Spirit of freedom,
may he make us responsible and mature
with the maturity to which you call us
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Blessing
Free sons and daughters of the Father, that is what we are. How great, and yet we know all this is a free gift from God. God has made us his children through our brother Jesus Christ. May he keep blessing you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
REFLECTIONS
27 October 2025
Luke 13:10-17
Today’s Gospel presents us with a powerful scene: Jesus is teaching in the synagogue when He notices a woman who has been bent over for eighteen long years. Without hesitation, He calls her, lays His hands on her, and she is healed—able to stand tall again.
But instead of rejoicing, the leader of the synagogue criticises Him. “There are six days for work; come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.” He cannot even bring himself to confront Jesus directly; he speaks to the crowd, clinging to rules rather than celebrating mercy.
Jesus unmasks the contradiction. If they could untie their ox or donkey to give it water on the Sabbath, how much more should this daughter of Abraham be untied from her suffering? His words pierce the heart: human dignity always comes before legalism, love before the system.
This passage warns us of a real danger—in religion, in society, and even in our own hearts. Systems, rules, and structures are necessary, but they can become idols if they overshadow compassion. When people are reduced to statistics, when procedures matter more than persons, when Church debates centre more on regulations than on love of God and neighbour, we have lost the Gospel.
Jesus also shows us the urgency of compassion. The woman could have been healed the next day without controversy, but Jesus refuses to postpone mercy. God does not delay in lifting burdens. Why should we? How often do we put off forgiveness, reconciliation, or a simple act of kindness for “another day”? Yet love is always for today.
This Gospel reminds us of the heart of Christianity: God sees each person, calls them by name, and sets them free. True discipleship means doing the same—placing people before systems, mercy before rules, love before delay.
May we learn from Jesus to untie burdens quickly, to never postpone compassion, and to remember that, before God, each person matters infinitely.
Straighten up!
God intends the human person to stand erect and free to look up to heaven. But we have been attracted by the allure of this earth. We begin to bow our heads down to have a closer look at these things and let ourselves be enchanted by these passing and momentary pleasures that make us not only lose track of time but forget what the Creator meant us to be. Until one day, we find ourselves bowed and bent. We cannot look up to heaven anymore but only have our gaze down on the earth we have become attached to.
Jesus comes to make us stand straight again, to restore us to our original posture with God so that we may have our sight fixed on eternity and not on this passing world. Yet we find it difficult to return to our original state; we have been used to feeling comfortable with our bent position, looking down and oblivious to the wide blue sky above.
Oh, if only you would let him put his hands on you to heal you from your infirmity so that you may straighten up!