Monday, October 07, 2019
27th Week in Ordinary Time
Our Lady of the Rosary
1st Reading:
Jon 1:1—2:1, 11
Gospel: Luke 10:25-37
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.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
To an ordinary Jew the priest and the Levite in today’s Gospel were only observing the law on ritual purity when in compliance with it they avoided contact with the man they had taken for dead. They even deserved commendation for taking the law seriously by not taking chances on the man whose vital status they weren’t actually sure about. These considerations, however, were beyond the contemplation of the parable. By narrating this parable Jesus did not intend to challenge the morality of the law on ritual purity but to declare love as higher than any existing law.
Today love remains the greatest law in Christianity. Emphasizing its importance St. Paul wrote that even if he already has the faith enough to move mountains but fail to love, he is nothing. He wrote further: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13). – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M.
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