Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time C-2

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Ps 17 (16):15 As for me, in justice I shall behold your face; I shall be filled with the vision of your glory.

Collect O God, who show the light of your truth to those who go astray, so that they may return to the right path, give all who for the faith they profess are accounted Christians the grace to reject whatever is contrary to the name of Christ and to strive after all that does it honour. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Scripture today: Deuteronomy 30:10-14; Psalm 18; Colossians 1:15-20; Luke 10:25-37

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. Teacher, he asked, what must I do to inherit eternal life? What is written in the Law? he replied. How do you read it? He answered: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' You have answered correctly, Jesus replied. Do this and you will live. But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, And who is my neighbour? In reply Jesus said: A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half-dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he travelled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.' Which of these three do you think was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers? The expert in the law replied, The one who had mercy on him. Jesus told him, Go and do likewise. (Luke 10:25-37)

Sanctity ‘Master’, the lawyer asked our Lord, ‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?’ The answer is daunting, even overwhelming. But if we remember the grace our Lord has won for us, it is a thrilling challenge for every day. ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself.’ Do this, He says, and life is yours (Luke 10: 25-37). If our Lord says ‘do this,’ then the doing of it must be possible. It can be done. Of course, we cannot possibly do this of ourselves. But the good news of the Gospel is that Christ has won the grace for us that makes this possible. Due to the merits and the work of our Saviour, the Holy Spirit has been given to us at our Baptism and our Confirmation, and by the power and grace of the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Jesus and of the Father, we can aim to do what God has actually commanded us to do. God has commanded that we love Him with our whole being, and to show this love by doing his will and loving our neighbour for love of him. We do this by fulfilling our life’s duties as well as we can, for him. That is to say, God has made it possible for us to seek to be hidden, humble, unknown saints. This gives to the life of each an immense dignity. Whoever we might be, however humble, however unknown or seemingly insignificant, and whatever might be our failures as others might consider them, we, all of us, have been entrusted with a great work for each and every day. That work is to love God as perfectly as we can. We may not have the talents or the opportunity, or the favourable circumstances to get to the top of our profession, but all of us have this great task, which is to love God with our whole being. When we appear before the judgment seat of God, we shall all be sitting for the same test, the test of personal holiness. God is not going to ask why did you not become the general manager of your company, or why did you not reach a six figure salary. He will want to know why you did not love Him as much as He commanded you to love Him. He will want to know why you did not even try to love him with your whole being, and why you chose to love other things instead.

That is our common calling, and we should cherish this calling as we would an immense privilege. For a great many people, their profession or work in life is their pride. Our pride ought be the calling we have received to love God with our whole heart. That is our first and foremost work in life. We should love this calling we have, and cultivate our sense of it. Our common vocation is to be holy. We should desire to love God with all our hearts, and we should cultivate this desire, preserve it and protect it, and make it a truly great desire, a desire that grows greater and greater as the days of our life pass. It is said that the sister of St Thomas Aquinas asked her brother how one becomes a saint. He is said to have replied: Really want it! We ought grow in a great desire for holiness, for this is what God desires for us more than anything else. The desire should be greatest at the moment of our death when we surrender ourselves into the hands of the One we have come to love. The test will always be our readiness to do God’s will. Death itself, and the acceptance of it, will be the greatest test of our love, and it will be the manifestation of our love. For that reason our death will constitute our greatest challenge and opportunity in life. It was the supreme moment of our Lord’s life, and we ought regard it as the supreme moment of ours. St Alphonsus once wrote that “if during life we have embraced everything as coming from God’s hands, and if at death we embrace death in fulfillment of God’s holy will, we shall certainly save our souls and die the death of saints.....Let us then abandon everything to God’s good pleasure, because being infinitely wise, he knows what is best for us” (Conformity To God's Will, no.4). Amid great sufferings, we shall die in joy. What a wonderful thing it is to die in the way God wants, namely in perfect obedience to him and with perfect love for him. God wants us to love him with all our heart and all our being, and we show him this love by striving to conform to his will as perfectly as possible. This is the great work of every single day, and especially at the hour of our death. It is the work of now, today, tomorrow, right to the end. For this reason in the Hail Mary we pray to Mary, that she will pray for us now, now, and at the hour of our death.

So then, let us decide — and it must be a personal decision renewed daily in our morning offering — to make holiness the quest of our life. It is God’s command. The means to do this is obedience to his holy will. Obedience to the will of God is the test of love for Him. This is expressed in the loving fulfilment of the daily duties of one’s state in life. Let us make that our daily goal.

(E.J.Tyler)

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A Second Reflection: (Luke 10:25-37)

Christ the Good Samaritan In our Gospel passage today a lawyer asks our Lord what he must do to inherit eternal life, and Christ asks in his turn, “What is written in the law?” The lawyer replies, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself.” “You have answered right,” says Jesus (Luke 10:25-37). That command of the Law provides us with a revelation of Jesus Christ. “I have come to fulfil the Law and the Prophets,” our Lord says elsewhere. The command of the Mosaic Law is fulfilled in our Lord’s own person. The lawyer continues, “And who is my neighbour?” Once again, our Lord’s answer, in which he describes the Good Samaritan, gives us a revelation of himself. “A man was once on his way down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of brigands; they took all he had, beat him and then made off, leaving him half dead.” That man who was left half dead is a picture of every man and woman, and of the human race lured into sin by Satan. It is left half dead in sin. Adam fell from original grace and in him we all fell, being subject, as St Paul says, to the power of sin and of death. Of ourselves, we are profoundly wounded by our own sins. Nothing and no-one can help us but God, and this he did with astounding generosity. He sent his Son to be our Good Samaritan. Contemplate the Good Samaritan of the parable — his gentleness and attention to the detail of the battered person’s needs. “He went up and bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them. He then lifted him on to his own mount, carried him to the inn and looked after him.” He helped this person at the personal cost of his time and money: The next day he took out two denarii and handed them to the innkeeper. “Look after him,” he said “and on my way back I will make good any extra expense.” The Good Samaritan is a symbol of our Lord himself and all that he has done for us, his tenderness and attention to the detail of our needs, especially our spiritual needs.

The Good Samaritan was a foreigner to the one left half dead. He could not be expected to put himself out very greatly. But he did. Who would have expected God to put himself out at great personal cost to himself in order to rehabilitate his creatures, who through their own fault had squandered and dissipated his gifts? Inasmuch as, in the words of St Paul in the second reading from Colossians, Christ Jesus is the image of the unseen God, the Good Samaritan is not only a symbol of Christ our Redeemer, but also an image of the Father who constantly tends our wounds. In a different passage, our Lord describes the Father as the vinedresser, Christ himself as the vine, and we as the branches. The vinedresser is continually tending us who are the branches in order to make us bear good fruit, fruit that will last. Both Christ and the Father look after us constantly. Not only do our Lord’s words in today’s Gospel tell us of himself and the Father, but they throw light on our condition as sinners. They also indicate the path we are to follow. The Good Samaritan is a pre-eminent inspiration for our daily behaviour and life. Like Christ, like God our Father, we in our turn are to be a gentle and sensitive neighbour to all those whom we see to be in need. One of the most beautiful of modern papal Encyclicals was the second one that Pope John Paul II wrote some two years into his papacy. It is entitled, God Rich in Mercy. It was an exposition of the mercy of God, that mercy which the Good Samaritan portrays. In that Encyclical the pope wrote that all members of the Church are to bear witness to the mercy of God by the mercy they constantly show to those in need. The Good Samaritan is a model for each member of Christ’s faithful, and a model for the entire Church. It is also a model for all of society. Years ago I knew a member of the Social Sciences department of Sydney University who chose to do his PhD on the figure of the Good Samaritan as a model for social service institutions in society at large. Indirectly he was taking Jesus Christ as the model for social action in society.

Let us think of the needs of our fellow man: his need for friendship, his need for a holy example of Christian living, his material needs, all his needs and most especially his spiritual needs. Man needs God above all. God, the Creator of the universe, is the Good Samaritan — he is a true Gentleman. Christ is the image of the living God, the Good Samaritan of mankind. By the power of the Holy Spirit let us resolve to be Good Samaritans to those in need everywhere.

(E.J.Tyler)

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