Dt
30:10-14
Moses said to the people:
"If only you would heed the voice of the LORD, your God,
and keep his commandments and statutes
that are written in this book of the law,
when you return to the LORD, your God,
with all your heart and all your soul.
"For this command that I enjoin on you today
is not too mysterious and remote for you.
It is not up in the sky, that you should say,
'Who will go up in the sky to get it for us
and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?'
Nor is it across the sea, that you should say,
'Who will cross the sea to get it for us
and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?'
No, it is something very near to you,
already in your mouths and in your hearts;
you have only to carry it out."
Responsorial
Psalm
Ps 69:14,
17, 30-31, 33-34, 36, 37
R. (cf. 33) Turn to the Lord in your need, and you will live.
I pray to you, O LORD,
for the time of your favor, O God!
In your great kindness answer me
with your constant help.
Answer me, O LORD, for bounteous is your kindness:
in your great mercy turn toward me.
R. Turn to the Lord in your need, and you will live.
I am afflicted and in pain;
let your saving help, O God, protect me.
I will praise the name of God in song,
and I will glorify him with thanksgiving.
R. Turn to the Lord in your need, and you will live.
"See, you lowly ones, and be glad;
you who seek God, may your hearts revive!
For the LORD hears the poor,
and his own who are in bonds he spurns not."
R. Turn to the Lord in your need, and you will live.
For God will save
and rebuild the cities of
The descendants of his servants shall inherit it,
and those who love his name shall inhabit it.
R. Turn to the Lord in your need, and you will live.
Col
1:15-20
Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of all creation.
For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth,
the visible and the invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers;
all things were created through him and for him.
He is before all things,
and in him all things hold together.
He is the head of the body, the church.
He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things he himself might be preeminent.
For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell,
and through him to reconcile all things for him,
making peace by the blood of his cross
through him, whether those on earth or those in heaven.
Gospel
Lk 10:25-37
There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test him and said,
"Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
Jesus said to him, "What is written in the law?
How do you read it?"
He said in reply,
"You shall love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart,
with all your being,
with all your strength,
and with all your mind,
and your neighbor as yourself."
He replied to him, "You have answered correctly;
do this and you will live."
But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus,
"And who is my neighbor?"
Jesus replied,
"A man fell victim to robbers
as he went down from
They stripped and beat him and went off leaving him half-dead.
A priest happened to be going down that road,
but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.
Likewise a Levite came to the place,
and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.
But a Samaritan traveler who came upon him
was moved with compassion at the sight.
He approached the victim,
poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them.
Then he lifted him up on his own animal,
took him to an inn, and cared for him.
The next day he took out two silver coins
and gave them to the innkeeper with the instruction,
'Take care of him.
If you spend more than what I have given you,
I shall repay you on my way back.'
Which of these three, in your opinion,
was neighbor to the robbers' victim?"
He answered, "The one who treated him with mercy."
Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise."
In today’s First Reading, the
people of
Today’s Second Reading from the
Letter to the Colossians presents several problems. There is no definitive
consensus as to who the author is and there is no clear picture of the false
doctrines and teachers the author of the letter is arguing against.
Additionally, there is no consensus among scholars that the letter was even
written to the Christians living in
In the hymn, Christ is praised as the image of the
invisible God. In other words, God’s presence is contained in his person. In
the hymn, Christ is called the first born of all creation because everything was
created through him, and all of creation is subject to him. The thrones or
dominions, principalities or powers are all created entities or beings. It
appears that these beings were believed to be angelic and were part of the false
teaching circulating through
Today’s Gospel provides a powerful lesson about mercy and love toward those in need. Through the story of the Samaritan contained within Jesus’ answer, he makes it clear that non-Jews (our equivalent today would be a non-Christian) can enter into eternal life. The “test” that the lawyer put to Jesus concerns the role of God’s law in the salvation preached by the missionaries that Jesus had previously sent out (see last week’s Gospel reading Lk 10:1-12, 17-20). Jesus replies with a question regarding the interpretation of the Law. The lawyer’s answer quotes the Shema found in Deut 6:4-5: "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind”, and links it to a saying from Leviticus 19:18: “and your neighbor as yourself." In the saying from Leviticus, a neighbor is understood to be a fellow Israelite. Combined with the lawyer’s second question: “and who is my neighbor?”, it is understood that there may be persons who are not my neighbor. Jesus’ story of the Samaritan answers the question by defining neighbor not as matter of blood bond or nationality or religious communion; rather what makes a person a neighbor is the attitude a person has toward others. In effect, Jesus is saying don’t ask who your neighbor is but rather are you a neighbor to others. The priest and the Levite in the story should be the example for others yet they did not help the man for fear of becoming defiled. Instead, "The one who treated him with mercy" is the example we are to follow. The lawyer who posed the question has such disdain for the Samaritan that he cannot even bring himself to say the word “Samaritan”, yet he understood Jesus’ message.
Who is my neighbor? This question asked to Jesus by the lawyer is perhaps the question we ask ourselves when first reading today’s Gospel. Who is my neighbor? Well, my family and friends are my neighbor and because of my relationship with them I should love them. The person or persons next door are also my neighbor but in a different way. I might not love them the same as I do my family, yet I would still help them out in time of need. Those who belong to my parish community likewise – I would probably be there for them in times of need. But rarely do we consider others our neighbor. If we were to live our lives believing that doing good to these persons was enough, most of us would probably say that we were living our lives as good Christians. But like with everything else with Jesus, there is much more to being a good Samaritan than just doing good things to those whom we know or consider part of our group.
If someone we considered to be an outsider would need our help would we help them? An outsider like the homeless man who stands at the intersection waiting to clean the windshield of our car, or the drunk who stumbles down the sidewalk and wreaks of booze, or that person who humiliated us in front of others; would we put our differences aside and extend a helping hand in time of need? That’s the question Jesus wants us to answer, because we should not be asking who is my neighbor, but rather how am I neighbor to others? Several years ago, a co-worker of mine was involved in a serious accident. After his delivery truck was struck by another truck, he was ejected from the driver cabin just before the entire truck flipped over. Although he sustained some serious injury, he would have been crushed had he not been ejected from the vehicle. The accident occurred during morning rush hour and sadly not one commuter stopped to help him or to even ask if he needed assistance. Shortly after the accident, I received a call from a person named Eddie who told me what had happened and where the accident had taken place. He also told me that he had already called for emergency services. When I arrived at the scene, Fire Rescue was already tending to my co-worker but Eddie was no where to be found. When I asked the firemen about this person they told me that apparently Eddie was a homeless man who was walking by at the time and who used my co-worker’s cellular phone to call them. Eventually, when my co-worker and I had a chance to discuss the incident, he said that as he was lying on the ground, this man (Eddie) came up to him, and asked him his name, but because he couldn’t speak at that moment, Eddie took the wallet from his pants pocket and looked for the driver license in order to know who he was. He then used my co-worker’s cell phone to call 911 and our company.
Eddie, a homeless person who maybe suffers from a variety of problems – he could be a drunk, a drug addict, have some sort of mental illness or emotional instability – but who definitely could use help himself, searched through my co-worker’s wallet yet did not take a single cent. He may very well have been hungry, but he did not remove any of the food products that were in the truck waiting to be delivered to some of Miami’s fine restaurants. His only concern at that moment was his neighbor who was hurt and in need of help. Eddie saw my hurt co-worker as his neighbor, and my co-worker had no other neighbor there except Eddie. What was even more astonishing, was that as I was standing there at the accident scene hundreds of cars, some very expensive, others old and rusty, but many with bumper stickers that announced their belief in Jesus Christ passed by, and not one stopped to even ask what happened. Who is my neighbor? Am I a neighbor others?
New American Bible; United States Conference of Catholic Bishops; North, M., “The Deuteronomistic History”; Weinfeld, M., “Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School”; Bruce, F. F., “The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Ephesians”; Fitzmyer, J. A., “TheGospel According to Luke”; LaVerdiere, E., “Luke”; Maddox, R., “The Purpose of Luke-Acts”; Brown, Raymond E., S.S., “Introduction to the New Testament”; Brown, Fitzmyer, and Murphy (ed.) “The New Jerome Biblical Commentary".
Deacon Lazaro J. Ulloa