Welcome to St. George’s
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St. George’s exists to form courageous disciples of Jesus, who joyfully live the mission of the Catholic Church.
MASS TIMES
Monday - Saturday 9:00 am
Saturday 5:00 pm
Sunday 9:00am am and 10:30 am
CONFESSIONS
Friday and Saturday
9:30-10:30 a.m.
(during Adoration time)
ADORATION
9:30-10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday
7:00-8:00 pm on Wednesday
NOTE: online registration is not required for weekday Masses.
The sign-up sheet at the entrance of the church must be completed manually.
MASS GOSPEL REFLECTION
Week 30 Ordinary Time, Friday, October 29, 2021
Luke 14:1-6. In the gospel there are seven times when Jesus performed a healing on the Sabbath. The Sabbath is, significantly, a time for recalling God’s Creation and the day on which he took rest. In the gospels, Jesus the Son of God by healing on the Sabbath creates the healed person anew. The Sabbath is also a time to recall the Exodus, the delivery of the People of Israel from their bondage in Egypt. The people Jesus healed on the Sabbath are delivered from the bondage of their disorder. Significantly the word of ‘healing’ in scripture is the same word that means ‘salvation.’ Healing is a sign of new life in the Kingdom of God.
Each of the times that Jesus heals on the Sabbath he meets with opposition, or even open conflict, for he appears to have broken the Law by performing a healing when no work may be done. Each time there is opposition Jesus points out to his opponents that acts of mercy and compassion take priority at all times, even on the Sabbath. Mercy and compassion have priority in the Kingdom.
In today’s telling of a healing, it takes place in the house of a leading religious figure who has invited Jesus to a Sabbath dinner. Jesus seems never to have declined any invitation to hospitality, even from his opponents. Now Jesus is under constant surveillance by the religious authorities, sometimes deliberately arranged to catch him making an error in religious teaching or practice under the Law. They were ‘watching him closely’ (v. 1); the biblical words for ‘watching closely’ also mean ‘ill-intentioned espionage.’ At this meal, he healed a man who had dropsy, a potentially serious condition. Taking the initiative, he then asked the Pharisees present why it should be a breaking of the Sabbath Law to heal a person, if under the Law it was acceptable to rescue an animal in distress. The Pharisees had raised this issue with him before, sometimes with open opposition and argument. On this occasion they were silent, ‘they could not reply to this’ (v. 6).
In the Kingdom, mercy and compassion always prevailed even over sacred religious practice, a reminder to the Pharisees and to all religious people to retain a Kingdom sense of proportion.
