15th Sunday-C

15th Sunday- C 

Good morning/evening everyone, I am happy to welcome you all for today’s Holy Mass. 

Once a man as he was driving, noticed a woman in a pouring rain trying to change a flat tire. So, he thought to himself, “I should be a good Samaritan’ and right away went over and helped her. After an hour of hard work in the pouring rain, he said, “Everything is good, and your tires are changed, and you are good to go”. And she said, “Sh..sh..sh..talk low”. He asked, “Why?” And she said, “My husband is taking a nap in the back seat”. 

Once a teacher said to the children, “We are all descended from Adam and Eve”. And one little boy said, “But my dad said that we came from Apes”. The teacher looked at him and said, “Oh James, I understand how you feel and that is probably true for your family”. 

Friends in Christ Jesus, 

Our Lord Jesus Christ is our Good Samaritan who looks after us in our challenges and difficulties. As we are in trouble, others may go away from us, but Christ is always with us. He fills us with kindness and love and leads us to paradise. 

Today’s gospel was often interpreted as that the man who was going down is Adam. Jerusalem is paradise, and Jericho is the world. The robbers are powers against love and kindness. The priest is the law, the Levite is the prophets, and the Samaritan is Christ Himself. 

In order to recognize the presence of the Good Samaritan in our lives, all we have to do is love Him with all our heart, mind, body and soul and love our neighbor as ourselves. 

Today’s Good Samaritan parable gives three philosophies that inspire us to know what is going on around us. 

1. The philosophy of thieves who robbed the traveler: It’s “What is yours is mine and I will take it by force”. For example, the terrorists and others, for their own sake and advantage, they take from others by force. The growing poverty around us.  Someone is constantly taking others by force and saying, what is yours is mine and I will take it by force. So, Catholic Church’s social teaching is all about solidarity and subsidiarity and thus helping those who are in need. 

2. The philosophy of the Jewish priests and Levites: It’s “What is mine is mine and I will not part of the other’s challenges”. And because of their utter selfishness, the priest and the Levite did not pay any attention to the wounded traveler. It was all about them...the Me... myself, and I philosophy. What is mine is mine and I will not part of any other’s challenges.  

Once a group of students who prepared to become ministers and pastors, were given the assignment of preaching on Good Samaritan parable. They were asked to go from one building to another to preach and in between, they put a sick man to find out how the students were going to react. The sad thing was everyone was so, so into their preparation and impress others by their preaching and not even a single one of them helped the sick man. What is mine is mine and I will not be part of anyone’s challenge philosophy.  

3. The philosophy of Samaritan: It’s “What is mine is yours as well too and I will share with you”. Kindness is the only language that the deaf can hear and the blind can read. We need more kindness and compassion today.