Gospel Reading : Luke 6:1-5
On a sabbath, while he was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked and ate some ears of grain, rubbing them in their hands. But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the sabbath?”
And Jesus answered, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God, and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those with him?” And he said to them, “The Son of man is lord of the sabbath.”
What do the Fathers say?
St AMBROSE. Not only in the form of expression, but in His very practice and mode of action, did the Lord begin to absolve man from the observance of the old law.
The Venerable BEDE. For His disciples having no opportunity for eating because the multitudes thronged so, were naturally hungry, but by plucking the ears of corn they relieved their hunger, which is a mark of a strict habit of life, not seeking for prepared meats, but mere simple food.
St CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. But the Pharisees and Scribes not knowing the Holy Scriptures agreed together to find fault with Christ’s disciples.
Tell me now, when a table is set before you on the sabbath day; do you not break bread? Why then do you blame others?
St AMBROSE. But the Lord proves the defenders of the law to be ignorant of what belongs to the law, bringing in the example of David.
St THEOPHYLACT. But he reproves them in another way, as it is added, And he said unto them, that the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath. As if he said, I am the Lord of the sabbath, as being He who ordained it, and as the Legislator I have power to loose the sabbath; for Christ was called the Son of man, who being the Son of God yet condescended in a miraculous manner to be made and called for man’s sake the Son of man.
St AMBROSE. But herein is a great mystery. For the field is the whole world, the grain is the abundant harvest of the saints in the seed of the human race, the ears of grain are the fruits of the Church, which the Apostles shaking off by their works fed upon, nourishing themselves with our increase, and by their mighty miracles, as it were out of the bodily husks, plucking forth the fruits of the mind to the light of faith.
The Venerable BEDE. For they bruise the ears in their hands, because, when they wish to bring others over into the body of Christ, they mortify their old man with its acts drawing them away from worldly thoughts.
Sources:
Bible readings from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Second Catholic Edition, copyright © 2006 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Quotes of the Fathers from :
Thomas Aquinas’ Catena Aurea Translated by St John Henry Newman
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