Sunday, July 13, 2025

 

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

(Deuteronomy 30:10-14; Colossians 1:15-20; Luke 10:25-37)

The well-known parable of the Good Samaritan reminds us of other stories about loving one's neighbor. One such story was written by the great Russian author Leo Tolstoy. Entitled "Two Old Men," the action begins in Russia at an unspecified time.

Ephraim and Elisha are two elderly friends. Ephraim is well respected in his hometown for his upright life. He has a large family and plenty of money, although he continually worries that it isn't enough. Elisha is neither rich nor poor. He drinks vodka occasionally and takes snuff, but he is known as a friendly man who likes to sing. One day, the two agree to undertake the long pilgrimage to the Holy Land, to which they had committed themselves in their youth.

After walking for several weeks, Elisha struggles to keep up with Ephraim. When he becomes thirsty, Elisha tells his companion to keep going while he asks for water at a peasant's house. He promises to catch up with Ephraim later. At the house, Elisha finds poverty such as he has never seen in their lives. Each member of a family of five is on the verge of starvation. Elisha shares the provisions he carries in his backpack with the family. He then goes to the nearby village to buy more. In fact, he stays with the family for several weeks, providing for their needs until he no longer has enough money for the boat fare from Constantinople to Jaffa. So he decides to abandon the project and return to his own land.

Ephraim reaches the Holy Land and visits all the important biblical sites. While attending the sacred liturgy at the Holy Sepulcher, he sees something he knows is impossible. From the back of the sanctuary where he stands because of the crowd, Ephraim sees his friend Elisha at the front near the altar. He looks for him after the Eucharist, but with so many men leaving the sanctuary at once, he can't find him. When Ephraim returns to his homeland, he goes to visit his friend. He tells Elisha that his feet reached the Holy Land, but he wasn't certain if his soul arrived as well.

Both stories—Jesus's parable and Tolstoy's short story—teach us several lessons. One is the relative importance of being faithful to our responsibilities. The priest and the Levite in Jesus' parable overlook the half-dead man because touching a corpse would have rendered them unclean and prohibited them from performing their priestly duties. Ephraim, also a diligent man, could have returned to investigate what happened to his companion, but he decided to go ahead with his project. In itself, it is good to be faithful to our responsibilities. However, sometimes God wants us to go beyond fulfilling ordinary duties to make sacrifices for the good of those in need.

Certainly, out of justice, the Samaritan has to do something to save the man's life. Binding his wounds and taking him to a shelter seem only humane in the situation. But he treats him like a brother, taking him to an inn and paying for all his needs. Elisha shows this kind of concern, which we call "love" or "charity," for the starving family. Just as Elisha stands near the altar in his companion's vision, we will be closer to Christ for having offered this kind of love.

Finally, both stories teach that our neighbor is not just the one who lives next door or even in our country. No, we are all neighbors to one another. As global warming is making clear, actions in one part of the world can affect lives in other parts. Jesus commands the lawyer to do to others what the Samaritan does for the man assaulted by robbers. We should hear him saying to us too: “Go and do likewise.”

Monday, October 7, 2024

Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary (Galatians 1:6-12; Luke 10:25-37)

James Gustafson was a Protestant ethicist.  His book Can Ethics Be Christian relates the story of a modern “Good Samaritan.”  The man came to the rescue of a drunken soldier whom he found laying on the street.  He made sure the soldier was not badly hurt and found in his wallet the soldier’s address.  Then he took $20 from the wallet, found a taxi, and sent the man home paying the taxi driver with the $20.  The man did all this even though he did not profess any belief in God.

Because of Jesus’ parable today, the man’s action might be described as “Christian.”  But is it fair to say that when the man did not proceed from any belief in Christ?  It should be observed that the man went beyond what most decent people would probably do in the situation – call the police and let them take care of the problem.  But he expended much time and energy to help the man. 

(optional homilette highlighting today's memorial)

Certainly Jesus calls us to act similarly.  We have to go beyond decency to assist the suffering in ways that really matter.  Christ has told us that they are really he himself.  They are also our passage to eternal life.

Today’s feast celebrates a number of accomplishments.  First, it lifts up the rosary as a way for Christians to implore the help of the Virgin Mary in seeking favors from God.  We remember how Mary appealed to her son at the wedding feast in Cana when the party ran out of wine.

Second, the feast recalls the naval victory of a Catholic alliance known as the Holy League over the Ottoman fleet in the latter part of the sixteenth century.  Historians have said that a defeat of the Holy League would have opened Western Europe to Turkish domination.

Third, the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary celebrates Mary’s patronage of the Dominican Order.  According to a legend, Mary presented the rosary to St. Dominic.  History verifies that Dominic chose the Mother of God as the Order’s primary patron.  Furthermore, the Dominicans were the primary preachers of the rosary for centuries. The great missionary Dominican province is named after Our Lady of the Holy Rosary as well as many Dominican churches and schools throughout the world.

Monday, October 4, 2021

 

Memorial of Saint Francis of Assisi

(Jonah 1:1-2:1-2.11; Luke 10:25-37)

 Not long after his conversion St. Francis was riding on his horse. He came across an odor so foul that his horse reared back.  Francis looked for the source of the odor and saw a leper in the middle of the road.  He had always been repelled by lepers, but now he dismounted and went to the leper. The leper held out his hands, and Francis kissed them.  It was the sign of reverence people in the Middle Ages given to a bishop.  Francis saw something priestly in this leper.  Indeed, he saw him as another Christ.

In today’s gospel Jesus tells the familiar story of the good Samaritan.  Tradition as long identified this Samaritan with Christ who saved humanity from death.  Jesus would have identified the man beaten and left half-dead with himself.  What the Samaritan did for that poor man, he did for the Lord.

It sounds impossible, but we are to imitate Francis of Assisi just as he became “another Christ.”  Like Francis, we should have a special sensitivity to for the poor and suffering.  Like Francis, we should have a special love for Christ.

Monday, October 6, 2014

Monday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time

(Galatians 1:6-12; Luke 10:25-37)

Along with the parable of the Prodigal Son, the parable of the Good Samaritan has always been one of the most favored readings of the four gospels.  Normally it is interpreted today as a lesson on loving one’s enemies.  Jews and Samaritans were distrustful of one another as Blacks and Whites, Hindus and Muslims, Russians and Ukrainians are today.  The Samaritan’s more than generous care of the wounded Jew shows us that to gain eternal life – the issue motivating the story – one must love her supposed enemies.

In Patristic times this same parable was given a very different reading.  Church Fathers did not see it as a story to be contemporized but as an allegory of Salvation History.  The man going down the road was Adam, the symbol of all humans.  Jerusalem, as the name implies, is the heavenly city of peace. Jericho, which evidently means moon, indicates human mortality.  The thieves are the devils who entice the man to sin and then leave him far from God or “half-dead.”  The priest and Levite, according to this reading, represent the Old Covenant which is unable to save the sinner.  The Samaritan is Jesus himself who ministers to the wounded by binding him, that is symbolically restraining him from sin.  The animal represents Christ’s own flesh which carries the wounded man to the inn, a symbol of the Church where people find comfort from the crazed and often dangerous world.

However one reads it, the parable of the Good Samaritan demonstrates Jesus’ mastery of both as story-telling and prophecy.  The passage begins by saying the scholar wants to test Jesus.  That’s like testing Yo-Yo Ma on the cello.  Jesus is the master.  He tests the scholar and the rest of us.  But his testing is not meant to put us down.  Just the opposite, he means to lift us up to the possibility of achieving true happiness. 

Monday, October 4, 2010

Memorial of Saint Francis of Assisi, religious

(Galatians 1:6-12; Luke 10:25-37)

Because of St. Francis’ love of the poor, his embracing poverty, and his unfailing effort to bring about reconciliation, he has been called “another Christ.” We too see in him a reflection of Jesus who lived hundreds of years before. We should similarly find a likeness of Christ in the Good Samaritan.

We are used to thinking of the Samaritan as a person like ourselves who should overcome prejudice to love everyone. An older interpretation of this parable, however, identifies us with the victim lying in the road. In this reading we have been brutalized by sin and left for dead in our folly. Then, the analysis continues, Jesus out of compassion comes to save us from damnation.

Our response to Christ for his generosity is to heed the commandment he gives to the scholar of the law inquiring about the requisites of eternal life. In going and doing like the Good Samaritan we imitate Christ. St. Francis serves as a worthy model in this endeavor. After his conversion from youthful swagger, Francis dedicated himself to preaching salvation by deed even more than by word.

Homilette for Monday, October 6, 2008

Monday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time

(Luke 10:25-37)

Commentators on Scripture note that the priest and the Levite who ignore the dying victim have some reasons to pass him by. As we might not offer help to a man standing beside a car with hood open out of wariness for a trap so too the priest and Levite might fear that the apparent victim is actually a decoy. Also, the Jewish clergy may be traveling on the other side of the road because they are on the way to Jerusalem to participate in Temple sacrifice. Handling a corpse would have prohibited the men from performing their professional services.

Still their lack of response to a person likely in desperate need is hardly commendable, much less worthy of eternal life. Entering God’s kingdom requires that we go out of our way to assist others. It happens the moment that our love as eros, seeking our own benefit, melts into love as agape, striving for the good of the other as unrelated to our own. To be sure, there is a connection between the two ways of loving. Human love always begins with eros, which is not necessarily selfish. God’s grace, however, transforms it into His unique and supreme way of caring.

Joe Biden’s story during the vice-presidential debate the other night may help us appreciate this parable. Biden remarked how as a young senator the Majority Leader Mike Mansfield corrected him for criticizing conservative senator Jesse Helms as an awful person. Mansfield told Biden that Helms and his wife had adopted a child with cerebral palsy, a deed indicating goodness. Biden’s lesson was to never judge a person’s motives; one may only judge the person’s actions. The priest and the Levite perhaps passed by the injured man for some plausible reason. But the situation called for a rescue effort, which, from all we know, they failed to provide. The Samaritan, on the other hand, showed himself to be worthy of eternal life by responding heroically to the urgent need.