YEAR A: HOMILY FOR MONDAY OF THE 27TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME (1)

YEAR A: HOMILY FOR MONDAY OF THE 27TH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

HOMILY THEME: THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN…. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

BY: Fr. Ivan LEVYTSKYY CSsR

HOMILY: Today, the gospel’s message indicates the path to life: «You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, (..) and your neighbor as yourself» (Lk 10:27). And since God has loved us in the first place He leads us to the union with Him. Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta said: «We need this intimate union with God in our daily life. And how can we achieve it? Through prayer». Being in oneness with Him we begin to experience that with Him everything is possible, even to love our neighbor.

Someone said that Christians enter the church to love God and come out to love their neighbors. Pope Benedict accentuates that the Christian’s program – the program of the Good Samaritan, Jesus program – is «a heart which can see». See and stop! In this parable there are two people who see the needy, but they don´t stop. This is why Christ has reproached the Pharisees saying: «Do you have eyes and not see?» (Mk 8:18). On the contrary, the Samaritan sees and stops, he has mercy and thus saves the life of the needy and his own.

When the famous Catalan architect Antonio Gaudí was run over by a tramway some bystanders didn’t stop to help that injured old man. He carried no documents and looked like a beggar. Had they realized who that neighbor was and surely they would have stayed in line to help him.
When we practice the good, we think we do it for our neighbor, but we really do it also for Christ: «I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me» (Mt 25:40). And Benedict XVI says my neighbor is anyone who needs me and I can help. If everyone seeing his neighbors in need would stop and have mercy on them once a day or once a week the crisis would decrease and the world would become better. «Nothing resembles us so much to God as the good deeds» (St. Gregory of Nyssa).

Fr. Ivan LEVYTSKYY CSsR
(Lviv, Ukraine)