15th Sunday of Ordinary Time 2022

The story of the Good Samaritan in today's Gospel is one of the most popular Gospel parables. It and the story of the Prodigal Son are the earliest Gospel stories that I remember hearing as a child. The characters of the victim, priest, Levite, and Good Samaritan are all people we have come to know well. 

We feel we know this story so well that we can easily miss its impact. The story is so familiar we don't understand how shocking it was to the people hearing it for the first time. Today it isn't easy to feel the impact the story had on the lawyer and the crowd listening to Jesus.

This past week I tried to think of a similar call to love of neighbor that might make the sort of impact Jesus' parable had when He first spoke it. Analogies fall short, but what situation in our culture today would help us realize how profound a call to love our neighbor Jesus made to the people of his day?

I have a dog, a Golden Retriever. I walk her mornings after Daily Mass. As we walked downtown the other day, we turned from Main Street to Cross Street. I nearly stopped dead in my tracks. Parked close to the corner was a car. A bumper sticker in its back window read, "The American Dream is not a handout." The car was a late-model BMW sedan. I thought, well, you're living the dream but not willing to help anyone else. The “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” image of American self-reliance is a myth. All of us have received some sort of privilege to help us along in life. Somewhere along the path of life, God sent a Samaritan who lifted us from the side of the road. No one is completely self-made. 

I felt like leaving a message on the car's back window. It would say, “The American Dream is a dignified job paying a living wage.” No, the American Dream shouldn't be a handout. It should be a hand-up. We all are responsible for imitating the Samaritan walking up to Jerusalem by caring for the hurting victim by the side of the road.  

We are busy these days putting up boundaries between them and us. We look at people's actions and lifestyles and try to separate ourselves from them. We look at people and concentrate on how they are different from us and believe differently than we do. We look and see their actions and find fault with them. We make judgments against them and try to find reasons we don't have to love them and treat them as if they were our neighbors.

The Good Samaritan story tells us that God's love for all people knows no boundaries. Walls do not block it. God loves the just and the unjust, the Jew and the Samaritan equally. God loves those who try to live faithful lives and even those who have committed despicable crimes in their pasts. 

The Good Samaritan story reminds us that God still loves us even though God's people have broken the covenant and sinned. Despite the continued breaking of our relationship with God and transgressing today, God has not turned his back on us. God has continued to be ready to heal our hurts and administered the healing balm of mercy to our sinfulness. God has continued to die on the Cross of our hardness of hearts and lack of thankfulness. 

Today, the scripture message reminds us that even though we fail to treat others as our neighbors, we still receive the free gift of salvation from a loving and generous God. Even today, God is willing to pour the wine and oil of mercy, compassion, and forgiveness into our hurts. A caring and merciful God is still willing to pay whatever the cost to bring us back to spiritual health. Our God is willing to do anything- right down to giving the life of His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, on the Cross for us- if that is necessary for us to learn to share God's unconditional love.

The recent U.S. Supreme Court abortion decision in the case of Dobbs vs. Jackson Woman's Health gives Catholics an opportunity to live up to our call to imitate the Good Samaritan and be people who share unconditional love. For years pro-life Catholics have prayed to overturn the Roe v. Wade abortion decision. Its reversal can't be the end of the pro-life movement but only the beginning. I pray the March for Life and other pro-life actions continue with renewed purpose to show we are truly pro-life.

If Catholics want to claim we are pro-life, we cannot cease to work for the sanctity of life from the womb to the tomb. We can't only mouth our support of life but must back it up with actions showing our respect for life at all stages. We must support life with our time, talent, and treasure. Catholics must support families caring for their members, young and old. 

In my “From the Pastor” column in this week's bulletin, I write about an initiative that the U.S. Catholic Bishops call “Walking with Moms in Need.” It is an effort to encourage parishes, Catholic organizations, and individuals to become familiar with local agencies helping struggling mothers and their families. It's a good beginning. Mothers facing pregnancy alone feel overwhelmed and lost. They need our help to relieve anxiety over an unexpected pregnancy and feel the joy of bringing new life into the world. 

I am working with Rosemary O'Reilly, our parish pro-life coordinator, to develop a parish clearing house of information on resources available for walking with Moms in Need. If you have information on such resources, please let us know. Better yet, join us in working to help mothers in need.

Such volunteer support is a good start but cannot only be an emergency band-aid approach. Pro-life Catholics must turn their lobbying effort to pressure public leaders to establish policies supporting families not only when a child is a newborn but as it grows and matures. Almost 12% of Americans live in poverty, but 16% or one-third more of our children suffer from material deprivation. That is a disgrace! How can we as a nation claim to support life when we allow so many of our young to suffer want?

During the pandemic, Congress passed legislation giving tax relief and financial support to families with children. If we want to call them that, those “handouts” helped lift over a quarter of children living in poverty out of want. They helped relieve stress and anxiety in the lives of many low-income families. Unfortunately, Congress has not seen fit to continue those programs. Many politicians claiming to be pro-life refused to vote to give a hand up to struggling families. They feel it is too costly to support the lives of underprivileged children and lift them and their families out of want. 

As Catholics claiming to support life, we must examine our consciences to see if we hold opinions similar to those expressed by that bumper sticker on the back of a luxury car. Are we willing to imitate the Good Samaritan by taking risks to help those in need? Yes, it will be a sacrifice and might mean paying higher taxes, but it will give those in need a hand up.

Catholics must also advocate for those on the other end of the spectrum of life, the aged. The pandemic has shown the vulnerability of our medical care system. It is underfunded, and medical outcomes vary considerably according to factors of race, age, gender, and economic status. The health care system's inequalities cannot be allowed to value some lives more than others.

Pro-life Catholics must include the inequalities of our medical system as one of our concerns. Access to proper medical care must be a fundamental right to life, not a luxury only available to those with the best insurance plans. Universal health coverage for all needs to be our objective.

Sadly, some so-called pro-life politicians desire to upend even our inadequate government medical insurance plans. They want to repeal existing health care laws or allow them to be severely underfunded. Catholic pro-lifers must work to help all people enjoy the fullness of the dignity of life.  

To be pro-life is to want to share God's unconditional love. Our possible reaction to that call is that God is God, and we are human. How can we possibly live up to the example of God? How can we live up to the call to treat everyone needing love and forgiveness as our neighbor? Indeed it is too difficult to do for us alone. When the Israelites asked Moses, he told them the law was not something up in the sky or across the sea, it was something they could obey if they allowed God to write it on their hearts. 

We can fulfill the call to love our neighbor if we invite the presence of Christ we celebrate in this Eucharist into our lives. Today, as we come forward to receive the Eucharist, we say to ourselves, "Lord, I come because I want to love my neighbor as you love them. I come wanting to love everyone you put into my life this week as I love myself. I want to love everyone you put along my path as my neighbor."