The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today challenge us to contemplate friendship and social responsibility as the passages resonate with Pope Francis third encyclical “In Fratelli tutti.”
Neighbour on the road
The reading from Paul’s Letter to the Galatians stresses there is no other Gospel and expresses Paul’s vindication of his Apostleship.
* [1:6–10] In place of the usual thanksgiving (see note on Rom 1:8), Paul, with little to be thankful for in the Galatian situation, expresses amazement at the way his converts are deserting the gospel of Christ for a perverted message. He reasserts the one gospel he has preached (Gal 1:7–9) and begins to defend himself (Gal 1:10).1
Psalm 111 offers praise for God’s wonderful works.
* [Psalm 111] A Temple singer (Ps 111:1) tells how God is revealed in Israel’s history (Ps 111:2–10). The deeds reveal God’s very self, powerful, merciful, faithful. The poem is an acrostic, each verse beginning with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet.2
The passage from the Gospel of Luke is the Parable of the Good Samaritan.
* [10:25–37] In response to a question from a Jewish legal expert about inheriting eternal life, Jesus illustrates the superiority of love over legalism through the story of the good Samaritan. The law of love proclaimed in the “Sermon on the Plain” (Lk 6:27–36) is exemplified by one whom the legal expert would have considered ritually impure (see Jn 4:9). Moreover, the identity of the “neighbor” requested by the legal expert (Lk 10:29) turns out to be a Samaritan, the enemy of the Jew (see note on Lk 9:52).3
David Crawford considers “Who is my neighbor?” He admits that sometimes, when he asks that seemingly innocent question, what he really wants to know is: “What are the exceptions to this commandment? The limits? Who can he exclude? Surely you don’t mean him or her? Who is in MY group of neighbors, and who makes up the THEM group I can despise, or at least ignore?”
There are neighbors all around us who need love and mercy. They have been beaten up and isolated economically, emotionally, physically, medically – and the pandemic and political crises have intensified the pain for many. My challenge is to respond as a Good Samaritan. I can’t withhold help until I am sure that I am not inconvenienced or until I am sure that the person is part of a group I support. I need to offer aid, even if I don’t like the political sign in my neighbor’s yard, if he has been intolerant about faith, race, or immigration, if she hasn’t thanked me for the last time I helped, if . . . . You get the idea. It can be easy to say the words about loving God with all heart, being, strength and mind, and loving a neighbor. With the parable, Jesus gives us an idea of what that means. Now go and do likewise.4
Don Schwager quotes “God desires to be our neighbor,” by Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 A.D.
"God our Lord wished to be called our neighbor. The Lord Jesus Christ meant that he was the one who gave help to the man lying half-dead on the road, beaten and left by the robbers. The prophet said in prayer, 'As a neighbor and as one's own brother, so did I please' (Psalm 34:14 ). Since the divine nature is far superior and above our human nature, the command by which we are to love God is distinct from our love of our neighbor. He shows mercy to us because of his own goodness, while we show mercy to one another because of God's goodness. He has compassion on us so that we may enjoy him completely, while we have compassion on another that we may completely enjoy him. (excerpt from CHRISTIAN INSTRUCTION 33)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on Luke 10:25-37 comments that it is likely that each of us will “pass by” someone in need today.
Jesus shared this parable to illustrate how God defines love and how he invites us to love the people around us. Loving our neighbor often translates to some level of personal sacrifice. It requires us to be accessible. It might call us out of our comfort zone, or it might mean giving of our time and resources. Maybe we don’t feel we have anything extra to give at that moment.6
Friar Jude Winkler offers background to Paul’s warnings about an alternate gospel. Our love of God and neighbour calls on our mind, soul, possessions, conscience, and resources. Friar Jude connects the Good Samaritan to a Good Taliban in our time.
Damian Howard SJ, the Provincial of the Jesuits in Britain, comments if universal love is to be more than a pious soundbite, one is entitled to ask what it looks like in practice and how one learns to act on it.
In answer to the first question, Pope Francis offers [In Fratelli tutti] one parable and two Christian lives. The parable, of course, is that of the so-called Good Samaritan, which is the scriptural heart of the encyclical, carefully read in chapter two, ‘A Stranger on the Road’. The two lives are those of Francis of Assisi and Charles de Foucauld, the nineteenth century founder of the Little Brothers of Jesus, both radical men of God whose missionary activity notably included outreach to the Muslim world.7
“Fratelli tutti”.[1] With these words, Saint Francis of Assisi addressed his brothers and sisters and proposed to them a way of life marked by the flavour of the Gospel.
Of the counsels Francis offered, I would like to select the one in which he calls for a love that transcends the barriers of geography and distance, and declares blessed all those who love their brother “as much when he is far away from him as when he is with him”.[2] In his simple and direct way, Saint Francis expressed the essence of a fraternal openness that allows us to acknowledge, appreciate and love each person, regardless of physical proximity, regardless of where he or she was born or lives.8
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, shares that in a recent homily given in Assisi itself, Father Michael Perry, the Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor (the name Francis gave us), shared his vision of Francis’ message and legacy for our time.
In the Canticle [of the Creatures] Francis celebrates God’s loving presence in all of creation. He looks to nature for guidance on how we are to model our relationships with God, one another, and with the natural world. . . . This one [community], this common home, has been created by God and given the vocation to love, serve, and honor the Creator by loving, serving and honoring one another. Humans and the creaturely world have as their vocation the duty to support and complete one another, not to compete against and destroy one another. We are co-responsible with and for one another, especially for the poor and excluded. We are co-responsible for the life of the natural environment, showing gratitude and respecting nature’s proper limits, not pushing the planet to the brink of ecological disaster. [3]9
We are called to be the one who shows mercy toward others as described in the “Fratelli tutti” encyclical of Pope Francis.
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