“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Jesus in the Gospel today challenges our priorities. Is God the ultimate end of my life? Do I believe that everything is only a means to praising, reverencing, and serving God and his people?
We feel stressed, anxious and burnt out when we become slaves to our “list of priorities,” rather than having our priorities serve our ultimate goal — God. Yet, if “the glory of God is the human person fully alive” (St. Irenaeus), then only one question would necessarily prioritize our lives: “Am I becoming fully alive?” All our actions, thoughts, emotions, desires, settings, relationships are meant to bring us closer to the Divine and to embracing our own humanity (with all its consolations and desolations). God is the only priority of our lives. Only then does “the Son of Man” become “lord even of the Sabbath.”
—Michael Martinez, S.J., a Jesuit scholastic of the Antilles province, is studying philosophy at Loyola University Chicago.