Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful to do good on the sabbath
rather than to do evil?” Of course, no one would suggest doing evil on the sabbath. What Our Lord wanted his hearers to understand is that sometimes NOT doing something is evil. When we see the troubles and difficulties all around us we are tempted to imagine it is someone else’s responsibility to fix it. For Jesus when some situation is in your face to fail to act is sinful. We recognize this every time we say the “confiteor” prayer at Mass. “I confess … that I have greatly sinned, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do.”