Today Jesus' disciples are criticized by the Pharisees for picking some grains as they walked through a cornfield. The picking of someone else's grain was not the problem but the fact that it was a Sabbath day when no 'reaping' was allowed. In the minds of the Pharisees, who would put the strictest interpretation in order to be on the safe side, what the disciples were doing contravened the Sabbath requirements. Jesus summed up his response by saying that what God wants is compassion and not legalistic rituals. The measure of our behaviour in God's eyes is not our observance of law but the degree of love and compassion we have for our brothers and sisters. Laws are for people; people are not for laws. We have to look at how we as Christians behave both individually and corporately. Legalism and small-mindedness can very easily infect our Catholic life. We can start measuring people - including ourselves but especially others - by the observance or non-observance of things which really have little to do with the substance of our Christian faith. Of course, we can also go to the other extreme of having no rules at all. There is just one very demanding law to which we are all called to subscribe and that is the law of love. As St Augustine said: "Love and do what you like." No truly loving act can ever be sinful no matter what a law may say. Because its practice can only benefit both the giver and the receiver.]