"Do This and You Will Live" - 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Many pundits and talk radio personalities insist that America is a Christian country, founded on Christian principles and setting forth an example of Christian living for all the world to follow. That is the claim made with our words. What, however, do our deeds say about our Christian identity? These same pundits would deny help to those who were deemed "undeserving" because the person in need was an undocumented immigrant or too lazy or whatever other qualifier deemed necessary to ration mercy and charity.


The Gospel text today may provide us a proper context for determining Christian identity and authentic Christian living. The reading is the famous parable of the Good Samaritan, one with which wer are intimately familiar. Jesus tells the parable in order to answer the question of the lawyer, a question designed to set limits on the command of love. The parable has four main characters: the man who was robbed, the priest, the Levite, and the Samaritan. The man robbed was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho, so we can safely deduce that he was a Jewish man. The priest and Levite who pass by and offer no help to the man are fellow Jews, and yet they do not help their fellow countryman and co-religionist. Notice, however, that Jesus passes no judgment on them or state why they did not stop to help.


Finally, we have the Samaritan, a member of the enemy race and religion of the Jewish people. This man stops to help the man dying in the ditch. He does so probably knowing the ethnic and religious identity of the man he is helping. The Samaritan does not place any limits on the love we should have for our neighbor; he offers whatever he can for the welfare of the man. In many ways he mirrors the actions of Jesus when he healed others and offered help: there were no limits to the love of Jesus. When Jesus is done telling the story, again there is no direct judgment involved: he merely asks the lawyer who was neighbor to the man in need. The lawyer's answer is telling: rather than use the description Jesus provides in the story - "a Samaritan traveler" - the lawyer instead says, "The one who treated him with mercy." The lawyer would not acknowledge the race and religion of the hero in the story, though he accurately states the actions of the Samaritan man. Jesus then commands the lawyer - and us - to go and do likewise.


The first and second readings point out that the demands of love are not esoteric and obscure. We know what we should do, for it is a law that God has written upon our hearts from the beginning of time. The text from Deuteronomy states very clearly that the law of love is very simple and easy for all to understand; we do not need an educated attorney to interpret it for us. Perhaps that was the point of Jesus telling the parable: everyone can access the truth contained in the story, not merely an educated elite. St. Paul shows us that while Jesus is the pre-existent Son of God present with God in the cosmos, he is also present in the Church and therefore accessible to all through the ministry of the Church on earth. By our actions as Christians we should be providing access to the law of love for all.


Jesus tells the lawyer and us that the law of love is the only path to salvation: "do this and you will live." Our challenge and pilgrimage as Christians is to grow ever more in this one essential virtue. Thomas Aquinas stated that love is the only virtue that does not have an excess; we fail in this virtue only by having a defect or a lack of love. Love is the only measuring stick for determining Christian identity and life. May we unite our prayer to that of the opening prayer for today's Mass and through it come to embody the virtue of love in our lives: "Let us pray to be faithful to the light we have received, to the name we bear. Father, let the light of your truth guide us to your kingdom through a world filled with lights contrary to your own. Christian is the name and the gospel we glory in. May your love make us what you have called us to be. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen."

Peace: The Gift of God - 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

Every single person on earth desires peace, but if the question were asked as to what constitutes peace we then arrive at a new war. Few can agree on a definition for what all human beings desire. Some say it is the absence of war, others the freedom from want, and still others speak of peace as an inner feeling of the soul. All of these definitions see peace as something that can be achieved through material human effort alone, and as a result all of them are lacking. This week's readings provide us with a greater insight into peace.

In the first reading from the prophet Isaiah we do not encounter the word peace, but we do see images of peace: Israel as being like a nursling carried in the arms of a mother. What greater image of peace can there be than to see an infant sleeping in the arms of his or her mother? Yet, the prophet tells us that this peace comes from God; it is not something that human beings can create for themselves alone. The prophet provides this image of peace to a nation experiencing the trauma of foreign invasion, despoilation, and slavery at the hands of the Babylonian Empire - all the result of sin, which Pope John Paul II states "that violence and injustice have their roots deep in the heart of each individual, of each one of us." (Message for World Day of Peace, 1984) The image is of the Messianic age when peace would come to all people through the coming of the Messiah of God.

Paul reminds us in the second reading of a second characteristic of peace, namely, that it comes to all who follow the rule of life God has shown us through the example of Jesus. So, while the fact remains that peace is a gift from God, we nevertheless have a role to play in bringing about peace and mercy in our lives. As the Church states regarding its Social Teaching, "it is a word that brings freedom. This means that it has the effectiveness of truth and grace that comes from the Spirit of God, who penetrates hearts, predisposes them to thoughts and designs of love, justice, freedom, and peace. Evangelizing the social sector, then, means infusing into the human heart the power of meaning and freedom found in the Gospel, in order to promote a society befitting humankind because it befits Christ: it means building a city of man that is more human because it is in greater conformity with the Kingdom of God." (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, #63)

In the Gospel text we see Jesus send out the disciples to accomplish the very evangelization that we just read about. The mission is one of peace, and it is our mission as well. Pope Paul VI stated that the mission of the Christian in the modern world is to deliver the Gospel message of peace that is "founded on justice, on the sense of the inviolable dignity of the human person, on the acceptance of an indelible and desirable equality of human beings, on the basic principle of human brotherhood, that is to say, on the respect and love due to each person." (Message for World Day of Peace, 1971) As in the day of the first disciples, this message will not be accepted by many. In fact, this message will lead to violence being committed against the Christian community that raises up the message in every age. Yet, the fidelity to the Gospel brings with it the interior peace to accept this suffering as Jesus the Lord did.

As we prepare to go forth from the Eucharist which is the bond of peace and charity, may we have this prayer in our hearts: "We thank you, Father, for showing yourself to us in the life, death, and resurrection of your Son Jesus. We thank you for all that you have offered us today; help us to understand your will more fully, and give us patience and comfort when we fail. Lord, give us your peace: the world is tormented by war and hatred, by suffering and injustice; give us the peace that we should give to others, the peace we should treasure in our hearts, the peace the world cannot give. Amen. (A Christian's Prayerbook: Psalms, Poems, and Prayers for the Church's Year, p. 100-101)