Monday of week 23 in Ordinary Time
First Reading
1 Corinthians 5:1–8
I have been told as an undoubted fact that one of you is living with his father’s wife. This is a case of sexual immorality among you that must be unparalleled even among pagans. How can you be so proud of yourselves? You should be in mourning. A man who does a thing like that ought to have been expelled from the community. Though I am far away in body, I am with you in spirit, and have already condemned the man who did this thing as if I were actually present. When you are assembled together in the name of the Lord Jesus, and I am spiritually present with you, then with the power of our Lord Jesus he is to be handed over to Satan so that his sensual body may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.
The pride that you take in yourselves is hardly to your credit. You must know how even a small amount of yeast is enough to leaven all the dough, so get rid of all the old yeast, and make yourselves into a completely new batch of bread, unleavened as you are meant to be. Christ, our passover, has been sacrificed; let us celebrate the feast, then, by getting rid of all the old yeast of evil and wickedness, having only the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 5:5–7,12
Lead me in your justice, Lord.
You are no God who loves evil;
no sinner is your guest.
The boastful shall not stand their ground
before your face.
Lead me in your justice, Lord.
You hate all who do evil;
you destroy all who lie.
The deceitful and bloodthirsty man
the Lord detests.
Lead me in your justice, Lord.
All those you protect shall be glad
and ring out their joy.
You shelter them; in you they rejoice,
those who love your name.
Lead me in your justice, Lord.
Gospel Acclamation
Alleluia, alleluia!
My sheep listen to my voice, says the Lord;
I know them, and they follow me.
Alleluia!
Gospel
Luke 6:6–11
On the sabbath Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach, and a man was there whose right hand was withered. The scribes and the Pharisees were watching him to see if he would cure a man on the sabbath, hoping to find something to use against him. But he knew their thoughts; and he said to the man with the withered hand, ‘Stand up! Come out into the middle.’ And he came out and stood there. Then Jesus said to them, ‘I put it to you: is it against the law on the sabbath to do good, or to do evil; to save life, or to destroy it?’ Then he looked round at them all and said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He did so, and his hand was better. But they were furious, and began to discuss the best way of dealing with Jesus.
Reflection
Paul’s words to the Corinthians are severe because the situation is serious. A destructive relationship has been allowed to continue openly, and the community is responding not with sorrow but with pride. Paul refuses to treat this as a private matter without consequences. Sin wounds the person who commits it, but it can also damage relationships and distort the moral judgement of an entire community.
The Catechism describes sin as an offence against reason, truth and right conscience. It wounds human nature and injures solidarity among people (CCC 1849–1850). Paul’s image of yeast expresses this communal dimension. A small amount works invisibly through the whole batch. What a community repeatedly excuses can gradually become something it no longer recognises as harmful.
Yet Paul’s purpose is not vengeance. Even the painful act of removing the offender is directed towards his ultimate salvation. Christian discipline should never delight in another person’s exclusion or disgrace. Its proper purpose is to tell the truth about what destroys communion while leaving open the possibility of repentance and restoration.
Paul then places the entire matter beneath the cross: “Christ, our passover, has been sacrificed.” The Christian community is not purified through its own moral superiority. It receives new life because Christ has offered himself for sinners. The Catechism identifies Jesus as the true Paschal Lamb whose sacrifice accomplishes the definitive redemption of humanity (CCC 608–609). Sincerity and truth are therefore not achievements about which Christians may boast; they are the fitting response to mercy already received.
The psalm holds justice and refuge together. God does not love evil, deceit or bloodshed, yet those who seek his protection are invited to rejoice. Divine justice is not opposed to mercy. God confronts what degrades his creatures precisely because he desires their good. To pray, “Lead me in your justice, Lord,” is to ask not only that others be corrected, but that our own conduct, motives and loyalties be brought into the light.
The Gospel shows what this justice looks like in the actions of Jesus. The scribes and Pharisees are watching closely, but not because they care about the man whose hand is withered. His suffering has become useful to them as a possible case against Jesus. Their concern for religious observance has become detached from compassion for the person standing before them.
Jesus calls the man into the middle. He makes visible the need that the others would rather subordinate to their argument. Yet he does not expose the man to humiliate him. He asks him to stretch out the very hand that cannot function, and in that vulnerable act the hand is restored.
The question Jesus asks admits no comfortable neutrality: is the sabbath for doing good or doing evil, for saving life or destroying it? Refusing to do the good that stands before us can itself become a moral choice. The Catechism teaches that Jesus respected the holiness of the sabbath while authoritatively revealing its meaning and placing works of mercy within its true observance (CCC 2173).
Paul and Jesus therefore confront two different forms of hardness. The Corinthians tolerate what harms their common life and congratulate themselves. The Pharisees defend the law while ignoring the person whom mercy could restore. One community needs the courage to name wrongdoing; the other needs the compassion to recognise that doing good is never foreign to God’s law.
The Church must hold these truths together. She is holy because Christ is holy, yet she embraces sinners and remains always in need of purification and renewal (CCC 827). Faithfulness cannot mean concealing serious wrongdoing, but neither can it mean reducing a person to the worst thing he or she has done. Christ brings sin and suffering into the light so that what is corrupted may be removed and what is withered may be healed.
Today’s readings ask us to examine what we have quietly allowed to shape us. There may be an old yeast of resentment, dishonesty, pride or compromise working beneath the surface. Christ does not expose it to shame us. As our Passover, he calls us into the freedom of sincerity and truth, where justice protects life and mercy makes restoration possible.
One line to carry today:
Christ brings what is hidden into the light so that corruption can be removed and what is withered can be healed.
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