Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
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July 8, 2022July 10, 2022
Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Dt 30:10-14
Col 1:15-20
Lk 10:25-37
GROW AS A DISCIPLE | PRAY, STUDY, ENGAGE, SERVE
GROW: My favorite line in “The Wizard of Oz,” in the climactic scene when Dorothy realizes “there’s no place like home,” comes from Glinda: “You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas,” she tells Dorothy. In the first reading today, Moses tells the Israelites something similar about wisdom and power. He tells them the secret to peace and prosperity isn’t “mysterious” or “remote.” He says “it is something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts.” In the Gospel, when the scholar asks Jesus about the secret to eternal life, he answers his own question by reciting the two great commandments: love God with all your heart, being, strength, and mind, and your neighbor as yourself. “You have answered correctly,” Jesus tells him. At our baptism, the Holy Spirit placed the wisdom and power to have the fullness of life in our hearts. The key is to “carry it out,” as Moses advises the Israelites. Jesus echoes this message: We must “do this” – love God and our neighbor – to enjoy the life God wants for us today and eternal life with him in the future.
GO EVANGELIZE | PRAYER, INVITATION, WITNESS, ACCOMPANIMENT
GO: One of the most heartbreaking things about being a parent is seeing children set limits for who’s in and who’s out. My daughter was in Kindergarten when she came home in tears, excluded from playing with her friends because she didn’t color a picture exactly as directed by another classmate. Our loving Father also sees our pain when we are excluded from being loved, and so when the scholar asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus refuses to set boundaries for who to include and who to exclude. In using the parable about the Samaritan, Jesus tells us that we are to treat everyone as neighbor, even our enemies. The Samaritans were enemies of the Jews, and those listening to Jesus would have been shocked that a Samaritan was the compassionate hero. This parable challenges us to consider the boundaries we set for who we consider neighbors – those worthy of our compassion and help, and perhaps those we consider “other,” or whom we feel we can ignore or reject. And to recognize how the boundaries we set prevent us from sharing the Good News of God’s mercy to those he seeks to heal.
PRAY: Ask the Holy Spirit for the wisdom to discern who you may be excluding as a neighbor. Pray these words from Dorothy Day: “Dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as well as our friend.”
