14 July, 2013 – Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Readings for Sunday Service. Deuteronomy 30:10-14- If thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord Colossians 1:15-20 - The Supremacy of the Son of God Luke 10:25-37 - The Parable of the Good Samaritan Fr. Richard D’ Souza SJ - Arrupe Retreat Center - Raia. The liturgy of today invites us to reflect on the nature of the human person and the purpose of life. What are we humans created for? What is the purpose of life? How are we to go about in this life? These are fundamental question which generations after generations have asked themselves. Various cultures and societies have come up with various rules and regulations to order life towards a certain purpose. Any rule, law or regulation is subordinated to this fundamental question about the purpose of life. This means that rules and regulations help us to achieve a certain purpose in life. Therefore if we wish to ask how we are to order our lives, we have to ask the fundamental question: what is the purpose of life? What are we created for? St. Ignatius of Loyola understood this very clearly when he wrote his spiritual exercises. The first thing he tells the Retreatant in the Principle and Foundation is that “Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul. And the other things on the face of the earth are created for man and that they may help him in prosecuting the end for which he is created. From this it follows that man is to use them as much as they help him on to his end, and ought to rid himself of them so far as they hinder him as to it.” This gives us the guiding principle of what we must do. How we must live our lives is intrinsic and dependent on our very nature and purpose. Moses formulated these same thoughts in the language of the Old Testament: that we must heed the voice of the Lord and follow his commands and statutes. However these commandments Moses reminds us is intrinsically written in our hearts. They are deep within us: following the commandments of the Lord means being true to ourselves, and to our deepest desires – which are ultimately for the Lord as St. Augustine reminds us: “Our hearts were made for You, O Lord, and they are restless until they rest in you!” The Gospel gives us a new insight into this problem about the nature of the human person. Jesus speaks about the commandment to love God and to love neighbor as the fundamental orientations about being human. However these commandments are not in the abstract, but are put in a very concrete form by Jesus through his parable of the good Samaritan. We can only be true to ourselves if we love God, by loving our neighbor, especially the neighbor who is suffering. Why did the good Samaritan help the man who had fallen by the way? It was certainly not for personal gain. However he realized that if he wished to be truly human, he had an intrinsic responsibility towards his brother on the street. By helping his brother, he was being true to himself, and was listening to the voice of the Lord in his heart. And God gives us the grace to become more human, more alive and thus be true to ourselves!
Posted on: Fri, 12 Jul 2013 08:56:57 +0000
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