Sunday June 1st – Sunday August 31st
Vigil Mass Saturday 4pm
Sunday Mass 8:30 and 11 am
The Good Samaritan
Most Christians recognize the parable of the good Samaritan but may not realize that Jesus tells the story in response to a question. In His encounter with the lawyer, Jesus reminds him that the Great Commandment – to love God and neighbor – is how we inherit eternal life.
The lawyer is looking for a loophole. If I have to love my neighbors, then I want as few of them as possible. However, in the parable Jesus expands the definition of neighbor to include everyone – including our enemies.
In the story of the Good Samaritan – which only appears in Luke’s Gospel – Jesus gives the lawyer and us a thought provoking challenge. In the story the two upstanding Jews – a priest and a Levite – can not or will not help the injured man. It is the hated Samaritan who acts correctly and cares for the man.
Just how much this story disturbed the lawyer is indicated by his response to Jesus’ question, “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” The lawyer says: “the one who showed him mercy.” He was unwilling to even pronounce the word “Samaritan.”
Jesus gives us all insight into the true spirit of the Great Commandment of love. Jesus exhorts His disciples – including you and I – to extend the same love and concern for an enemy as we would a friend.
I know I speak for myself and also maybe for you when I say that it is only with the grace of God and the help of Jesus that I can accomplish this goal.
Lord help me to love my enemies as you taught us.
God Bless,
Msgr. Powell
14th Sunday in Ordinary Time
As Jesus travels toward Jerusalem, He sends His disciples ahead of Him to prepare people for His visiting their towns and villages. These disciples were given much the same charge as the Twelve. Like the Twelve, the seventy are related to the origins of Israel. Whereas the twelve apostles relate to the twelve sons of Israel, the seventy relate to the seventy elders Moses gathered around Himself as the elders of Israel.
These seventy received some of the spirit God had given to Moses, and they would assist Moses in leading the people. The seventy disciples represent Jesus when He is absent and they carry out what will be the work of the Church. To hear or reject them is to hear or reject Jesus as well as Him who sent Jesus.
The disciples return to Jesus, reporting great success. Yet the important thing is not what the disciples have done, but that their “names are written in heaven.” God values us for who we are more than for what we can do for Him, even though he expects our service. Jesus rejoices that God has made Himself known to the ordinary men and women who Jesus called to be disciples. He rejoices in the way that Gods’ Kingdom was being revealed to them, joining them to the Father.
Even if these disciples often failed to understand, even if they made mistakes, even if they wavered, never the less Jesus had changed their lives where it counted most. Jesus brought them and would continue to bring them into a relationship with His Father as their Father, fulfilling the hopes and longings of earlier ages. Jesus did that for His early disciples, and he also does it for you and me – His disciples today.
God Bless
Msgr. Powell