Facing the rigidity of the Pharisees' rules, Jesus proposes true love

Today Jesus once again defends us from the foolishness of the Pharisees. Some of the disciples were walking with the Lord. Since they were hungry, they began picking heads of grain and eating the kernels, as if they were snacking on “popcorn.” But what a mistake: it was the Sabbath. Sin! said the Pharisees. But God had not said that; the Pharisees had made it up. —The dramatic thing is that twenty centuries later we still do the same: we love “religion à la carte”… We invent religion for ourselves, usually making it fit whatever I happen to like. Then it is no longer God’s affair; it is me telling God how things are…