Tuesday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time [II]
Galatians 5:1-16  +  Luke 11:37-41
October 13, 2020

For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.

We tend, at weekday Masses, to hear a continuous reading from day to day of whichever book of the Bible is being read for the First Reading.  However, what happens at the beginning of today’s First Reading is unusual.  The first verse of today’s reading was the last verse of yesterday’s First Reading.  This repetition underscores the significance of this verse’s message.  “For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.”

Freedom, we might say, is the whole point of faith in Jesus Christ.  Without Christ, we are slaves:  to sin, and to our fallen selves.  In Christ, we are free to live eternally.  In Christ, we find the Love who is God Himself, and the love that strengthens us for service of God and neighbor.

During the month of October, the month of Our Lady’s Rosary, the Church also focuses on the dignity of human life.  Part of this focus is upon the need for laws to be passed to protect human life.  While we need laws that reflect the mind of God, we have to be honest about the fact that laws do not change the minds and hearts of lawbreakers.  Laws can make good fences, but they cannot make good people.  That why the fostering of virtue is needed, and there’s no greater source of virtue than God’s grace.