A Most Blessed St. Patrick’s Day to our Irish readers (and those who want to be Irish today).  As we get closer to Holy Week, where the hatred & rejection of Jesus intensifies, we come to see today that the scribes & Pharisees have become so rigid about the Law that they use it to trap & eventually to kill Jesus.  Unfortunately, if we think that these kinds of things are past us and we are an evolved faith, we’ve missed the timelessness of the Gospel because these things are very much a part of the strife we experience in our Catholic Church today.  We have groups within the Church that seem to attack anything and anyone who is not in accord with their “brand” of Catholicism.  On the other hand, we have groups within the Church who use Gospel passages like this to assert a position that Catholic teaching, rules and precepts and Catholic traditions are old and archaic, not to be followed.  This man was healed of his infirmity and told to sin no more.  Eradicating sinfulness and helping each other do it, getting ourselves to heaven and bringing others with us, tirelessly healing souls; these are the things which we are called to do as Catholic Christians, and these are things which our vocation (whatever it may be) are meant to help us do.  We must seek to be like our Lord in the Gospel today AND we are also meant to be watchful that we don’t fall into the trap that those who sought Jesus’ ruin fell into.  It’s even more deadly for us; because it’s important that before we criticize anyone for what they do, that we ask ourselves if someone came to know Jesus Christ in a greater way through our brother or sister whom we’re ready to speak against.