Fifteenth
Sunday of the Year – 2016
So here is a
question for you. Does God speak to you? Does God speak to you person-to-person? In today’s first
reading we see that God spoke to Moses and gave him the Commandments to live
by. Moses then tells
everyone that these commandments are meant for all of us know, and learn, and live
by.
Then Moses goes
on to say that learning and knowing the Commandments will not be difficult –
why - because God is teaching them to us in our hearts.
"For this command that I enjoin on you today is not too mysterious and remote for you . . . . no, it is something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out." Dt. 30:10
So the
Commandment teaches us what is right or wrong. Our conscience tells us,
personally, how well we are doing with that Commandment and its teaching.
But over time,
the Commandments became bogged down by a lot of add-ons, - interpretations and commentaries
that various teachers of the law were adding to the commandments.
In the gospel
story of the Good Samaritan, one such teacher of the law wants to know what Jesus has to say about moral living and eternal life. He
frames it in a question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus answers by
pointing to the Commandments – you will find the answer there Jesus tells him.
Then Jesus asks him, “What have you learned from the law?” The lawyer answers:
"You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself."
Jesus replies, "You
have answered correctly; do this and you will live. Now remember
this is a lawyer talking to Jesus and their heads are full of “What if’s - an's - and but's …”
questions, like “who is my neighbour?”
Jesus answers
with this beautiful parable – a man falls into the hands of robbers and is left
on the road half dead … three men come upon him, a temple priest, a Levite,
and a Samaritan … The priest and the
Levite see him, and maybe in their conscience they feel sorry for him, but in
their heads the rules forbid them dealing with blood which would make them
ritually unclean and so unable to function in the temple as Priest and Levite.
So they ignore their conscience and obey the rules, and leave him dying.
But the
Samaritan, who is not all tangled up with temple rules, is free to follow his
conscience – he stops and rescues the wounded man. Jesus asks the lawyer, who
fulfilled the command to be his neighbour? He answers, the one who showed mercy – to which Jesus replies, "go and do likewise".
In St. Peter’s
letter we read; “For the Scriptures say,
“You must be holy because I am holy.”
1 Pt. 1:15
In this year of
Mercy, Pope Francis is reminding the whole Church that we must have in us the
same mind and heart that is in Christ. We must shape our consciences by
observing and imitating that conscience we see at work In Jesus. Our calling is
to be holy. God’s name is Mercy.
The world we
live in today is trying to reshape our conscience with a morality that excludes
any mention of God. That is why our communion in the Church is so vitally
important today. It is in the Church that Jesus is seen and heard; where the
“Imitation of Christ” is priority number one – where we strive to shape our
conscience to resemble that of Christ.
Perhaps a good ending to these remarks is St. Paul’s words to the Church in Corinth.
St. Paul writes; examine yourselves to see whether you are
in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in
you—unless, of course, you fail the test?
Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice!
Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in
peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.
Greet one another with a holy kiss. (the
sign of peace)
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. 2 Cor.
13:5&11
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