15^th Sunday of Year

Today’s parable of the Good Samaritan is often used as a moral story where we are to help anyone in the proverbial ditch. We need to go deeper. Familiarity with this story makes it easy to lose sight of its message. We can focus on the two religious leaders who should know and model God’s command to love. Jesus’ focus is on the Samaritan, and his actions. Jesus’ audience would have expected to hear about bad behaviour because Samaritans were despised enemies of Jewish people. There is a surprise twist as Jesus tries to stop the standard responses of people and nudge them into a new realization. 

14^th Sunday of Yea

‘The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ speaks all languages,

It esteems and embraces all cultures.

It supports them in everything human and,

when necessary, it purifies them.

Always and everywhere the Gospel uplifts and enriches cultures

with the revealed message of a loving and merciful God.’

Pope John Paul ll

Thirteenth Sunday of the Year

Today’s gospel contains some strong and jarring language (hyperbole) as the journey into living the values of God’s Reign continues. Jesus, heading for Jerusalem, via Samaria, sees things as never before. On this journey, going through Samaritan villages, not the done thing, he opposition from people in Samaria who were considered as half-baked Jewish people. Who is this ‘human being’ who exists on society’s fringes, not belonging, rejected, censured, finally executed, and ‘taken up’ (Luke 9:51)? He comes as man of nonviolence as he tells his disciples who want to bring down fire on the people to respond to their inhospitably. Little has changed as we observe nations and peoples taking up arms for perceived or real opposition.