Presence of God

O Lord, impress upon my heart Your commandment of charity and the example You gave of it.

Meditation

I. "A certain man went down fromJerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, who also stripped him, and having wounded him, went away, leaving him half dead" (Lc. 19, 23-37). That unfortunate man represents each one of us. We too have encountered robbers on our way. The world, the devil, and our passions have stripped and wounded us. Who can say that he does not have in his own soul some wound, more or less deep, left by temptation or sin? But, on our route, there was also a good Samaritan, rather the Good Samaritan par excellence, Jesus, who, moved by compassion for our state, brought us help. With infinite love He bent over our open wounds, curing them with the oil and wine of His grace. The oil represents its gentleness and the wine its vigor. Then He took us in His arms and brought us to a safe place, that is, He entrusted us to the maternal care of the Church, to which He has consigned the price ofour ransom, the fruit ofHis death on the Cross.

The parable of the good Samaritan thus delineates the story of our redemption, a story which is ever in action and which is renewed every time we draw near to Jesus, humbly and regretfully showing Him the wounds of our souls. It is actuated in a very special way in the Mass, where Jesus presents to the Father the price of our salvation, and renews His immolation for our benefit. We should go to Mass in order to meet Him, the Good Samaritan, to invoke and receive His sanctifying action. The more we recognize our own misery and our need of redemption, the more will Jesus apply the fruits of redemption to us. When He comes to us in Holy Communion, He will heal our wounds, not only our exterior wounds, but our interior ones also, abundantly pouring into them the sweet oil and strengthening wine of His grace.

This is how Jesus treats us, this is how He has treated mankind, which, by sin, had become a stranger, yes, an enemy to Him and even rejected Him, the Son ofGod!

II. Jesus, who by His redemptive work, had given us the highest example of a most merciful and compassionate charity, could fittingly conclude the parable of the good Samaritan with these words : "Go, and do thou in like manner"; and He might have added, as He did to His Apostles on the evening of the Last Supper : "For I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you do also" (Jo. 13, 15)

To the scribes and Pharisees, the word neighbors meant friends, or at most, the Israelites, but never the pagans or the Samaritans. However, the Savior went beyond this narrow interpretation and suggested an act of charity to an enemy as a concrete example of the charity which was commanded by the law. The good Samaritan brought help to a poor Jew who had been left unaided and abandoned by a priest and a levite, his own fellow countrymen; he did not take into account the hatred the Jews had for his people. This universal charity is to be the distinctive mark of the new religion established by Christ. St. James wrote : "Religion clean and undefiled before God and the Father is this : to visit the fatherless and widows in their tribulation" (1,27). There is no true religion without charity toward our neighbor, and above all toward a suffering neighbor. The scribes and Pharisees, and even their priests, who had reduced religion to mere exterior formalism while neglecting the duties of charity with such unconcern, found themselves condemned by the parable of the good Samaritan. Unfortunately, even among Christians, there are found devout persons who are scrupulous about omitting a single exercise of piety but have no hesitation about abandoning those who suffer; they have not grasped the real inner meaning of religion, but have stopped at the exterior practices. Religion gives us an intense realization of our relationship with God : He is our Father and we are His children; but if we are all children of the same Father, how is it that we do not consider ourselves brothers? True piety consists in the realization of our divine sonship and of our brotherhood with all men, without exception. And he who truly feels himself a brother will never be heedless of the needs and sufferings of others.

Colloquy

"O Lord, the more I understand the love You have for us, the more shall I be willing to put aside my own pleasure and profit in order to please You by serving my neighbor.

"Then I shall not consider at all what I may lose : I shall have my neighbor’s good in mind and nothing else. In order to give You greater pleasure, my God, help me to forget myself for others, and if need be, even give up my life as did many martyrs" (T.J. Con, 7).

"O charity, you are the sweet, holy bond uniting the soul to its Creator : you unite God to man and man to God. You kept the Son of God nailed to the wood of the holy Cross. You unite those whom discord keeps apart. You enrich with virtue those who are poor, because you give life to all the virtues. You bring peace and suppress hatred and war. You give patience, strength and perseverance in return for every good and holy work. You are never weary, you never turn aside from the love of God and neighbor, either because of weariness, pain, contempt, or insult.

"O Christ, sweet Jesus, give me this holy charity, that I may persevere in doing good and never give it up; for he who possesses charity is founded on You, the living rock, and by following Your example, he learns from You how to love His Creator and his neighbor. In You, O Christ, I read the rule and doctrine which are right for me, for You are the way, the truth, and the life. If I read You, I shall follow the right path and shall occupy myself solely with the honor of God and the salvation of souls" (St. Catherine of Siena).