Set Free – Reflection on Luke 13:10-17
To rest on the Sabbath results in the ability to be embraced in the arms of the Lord. This embrace allows us to absorb grace-filled love to fill our cup to overflowing. Jesus’s view is that being distracted causes us to lose our focus and desire for receiving and giving God’s love away. Large distractions that tug and pull in every direction away from times of rest can radically impact the amount time for prayer. Prayer helps keep our well of living water filled. We need Jesus’s love to be set free, unbound, and healed from those things that ail us or prevent us from being like Jesus. When set free, we have time and patience in a similar way to Jesus. This is true even on Sabbath before and after gathering for service as we give love we have received to others.
The Woman with an Infirmity of Eighteen Years by James Tissot (full-resolution painting)
More details are available on the Brooklyn Museum website.
Additional Ordinary Time Reflections
Luke 13:10-17 – Scripture*
Jesus Heals a Crippled Woman
10 Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. 11 And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” 13 When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. 14 But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” 15 But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? 16 And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” 17 When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.
Additional Thoughts
Thank you for meditating on this Gospel and reading this Lectio Divina on
Thank you for meditating on this Gospel and reading this Lectio Divina on Luke 13:10-17 Reflection – Set Free.
Would you like to contribute related thoughts to these Lectio reflections on the Gospel readings? Since Lectio is not the only contemplative payer style, others might appreciate these types of expressions in this ministry. Do you see God’s grandeur everywhere and unconditionally enjoy sharing the love of Christ that you have inside? Are you willing to be anonymous in what you would share? If so, email me.
Prayer for young families:
Lord, let the young families of our communities get to know your joy, peace, comfort, and love despite worldly distractions.
Attributions
*This site has written permission to use the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) Bible Luke 12 passage.
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