Rev. Daniel E. Pilarczyk

Today’s Gospel reading gives us the genealogy of Joseph, the legal father of Jesus. Without all those people, and without the cooperation of Joseph, God’s plan of salvation wouldn’t have come to fulfillment.

The apostles were not prominent people. All of them were pretty ordinary. You didn’t have to qualify to approach Jesus. You just had to want to be near him.

There are times when compassion takes precedence over legal niceties. Jesus comes down on the side of compassion when he heals a man on the Sabbath. His enemies are left speechless.

When Jesus’ disciples seem to be disregarding the requirements of Sabbath observance by picking and eating grain from the fields the Pharisees protest. Jesus says what his followers are doing is acceptable because he approves of it and he–the Son of man–is Lord of the Sabbath.

You don’t respond to the newness that Jesus is proclaiming by grim dolefulness. Jesus expects his followers to be happy, to be joyful, to be grateful in his company.

Jesus is still generous today. To a worldwide community of believers he provides the sacraments, the Scriptures, the Church’s teaching, the companionship of the faithful. We are called to be grateful.

Jesus presented himself as the proclaimer of the kingdom. This was the purpose of all his activity. “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God,” Jesus says. “For this purpose I have been sent.”