THOUGHTS OF A NUN
The Good Samaritan
Annunciation, March 25, 2007
Luke 10: 25 37
A couple decided to adopt a baby whose mother, Melissa –as the adoptive-father-to-be described her- was a “gutter punk”. He defined the term “gutter punk” as a homeless-by –choice teenager who spent summers in San Francisco, asking people for spare change. One topic the couple discussed with Melissa was the spare change idea. Melissa told the couple that people who said no to her begging did not annoy her (she used another verb than annoy!) but people who pretended not to hear her as they walked by would frequently cause her to follow them down the block yelling after them that; “Hey, I exist, you know!”
In this morning’s gospel, only the Samaritan treated the wounded Man as a person to love or even recognize as existing. The thieves treated him as an object to exploit, the priest as a problem to avoid, the Levite as an object of curiosity giving the man a mere glance as he hurried by.
There are three points about loving our neighbor that are clear in this Samaritan story:
- our neighbor is anyone of any race or creed or social background who is in need
- love means acting to meet the need. Wherever we live there are needy people close by. So even if all we can do is acknowledge the person’s existence, that is a much better thing to do than to ignore the other.
- lack of love is often easy to justify (I’ll be unclean if I touch a dead body)
During the Lenten season, as it is customary to make use of the sacrament of confession, this mornings’ readings made me think of examining my own conscience and wondering how often may I be like the priest and the Levite? The Samaritan’s behavior is what Christ would do. I’d like to think all my actions are like that of the Samaritan, like that of Christ but are some more like the other two?
In thinking about my own past actions I realize it is a mistake to put the emphasis on scraping the bottom of the barrel of our souls to be sure we don’t miss any sins. To be sure, we need to discern where we may have missed the mark and also be aware of questionable tendencies in our lives, especially in our relationships with others, God and ourselves. But, our past actions are just that –part of our history. Not even God can change that. Through confession, we put our “less than perfect” choices in God’s hands for forgiveness.
God’s help and grace are for the future, inviting us to higher levels of conversion and right living. In other words, God is much more interested in what we are going to do than in what we have done. We need to take time to discern the movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
So. Let us take one main idea to work on, like treating the other in such a way that we acknowledge them as persons. Or not being so quick to dismiss another’s idea or thought, even if we do have to disagree with them in the end.
Each of us needs to ponder what will actually assist us to bring more fully to life the “new creation” that is given by Jesus in our sacramental communion with God.
May we all find encouragement in knowing God’s help and grace is there for our acceptance as we engage more fully in this Lenten season leading us to the Paschal Mystery.
Christ is in our midst! |
