St. Francis of Assisi 

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊ 

Jonah 1:1 – 2:1-2, 11

 

Jonah 2:3, 4, 5, 8

You will rescue my life from the pit, O Lord.

 

＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊      

Luke 10:25-37

Then a teacher of the Law

Came and began putting Jesus to the test. And he said, “Master, what shall I do to receive eternal life?” Jesus replied, “What is written in the Scripture? How do you understand it?” 

The man answered, “It is written: 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 you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus replied, “What a good answer! Do this and you shall live.” The man wanted to keep up appearances, so he replied, “Who is my neighbor?”

 Jesus then said, “There was a man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him, beat him and went off leaving him half-dead.

 It happened that a priest was going along that road and saw the man, but passed by on the other side. Like­wise a Levite saw the man and passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, too, was going that way, and when he came upon the man, he was moved with compassion. 

He went over to him and treated his wounds with oil and wine and wrap­ped them with bandages. Then he put him on his own mount and brought him to an inn where he took care of him.

 The next day he had to set off, but he gave two silver coins to the innkeeper and told him: ‘Take care of him and whatever you spend on him, I will repay when I come back.’”

 Jesus then asked, “Which of these three, do you think, made himself neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The teacher of the Law answered, “the one who had mercy on him.” And Jesus said, “Go then and do the same.”

 

Gospel Reflection：

Nowadays, we live in a world knitted together by superior technology. Thus in this post technological age, our faith, and our community living experiences train us to look beyond borders and see all people as our neighbors.

We intuitively know that know that our well-being is hinged on the well-being of others. Hinged on the well-being of others. We probably do not ask “who is my neighbor” nowadays because we have learned to think globally.

But there are times when we can relate to the man who asks Jesus this question. We know the correct answer to the question, but don’t actually know who our neighbors are. Jesus provides us with a measurement.

It is not dependent of proximity whether relational or geographical. Our neighbor is the one who needs most of our help. This does away with a lot of artificial barriers we build around our relationship. From now on, we cannot look at the misery and suffering of others in the same way as before.