15th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Gospel Reflection

Luke 10:25-37

“For this law that I enjoin on you today is not beyond your strength or beyond your reach. It is not in heaven, so that you need to wonder, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us and bring it down to us, so that we may hear and keep it?’ Nor is it beyond the seas….No, the Word is very near to you, it is in your mouth and in your heart for your observance.” With these words, the Lord God made the people of Israel reflect on how privileged they were to have received inspired instruction about what was morally good and morally evil—what led to life, and what led to death, spiritually and even naturally. Other nations might flounder in the dark, but Israel had a illuminated path before it. It was the Law, and in particular, the commandments. These commands they should be able to recite, but more importantly to bear
in their heart. What is more, they were not impossible to fulfil. As the Council of Trent taught in response to certain Protestant errors: “God does not command impossible things; when he makes a commandment he is telling you to do what you can and to ask (his help) as regards what is beyond you, and he helps you to fulfil it” (De iustificatione, 11).

What is said here in the Book of Deuteronomy may also be implying that the heart of the Law—the commandments—was not beyond the capacity of human reason to know. At the very least it makes the point that these commandments are in keeping with reason, and are not just arbitrary rules.

Of course, without God’s grace, given the weaknesses of the present human condition, errors of judgement were and are frequent. And even if men and women know what is right and what is wrong in different situations, unless God assists, most are more likely to take the easy way, or the way of pleasure, instead of the right and just way.

Putting it bluntly, God’s commands make sense and are all about what truly suits us as human beings—what enables us to have good and meaningful lives. At the same time, it is inevitable that they will prove challenging and, at times, difficult for us. This is because they often call for the restraining of our instincts, the overcoming of built up bad habits, the seeing beyond short sighted prejudices, and the conquering of laziness or timidity.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is questioned, as he was more than once, about what assures one’s salvation. In answer to the scribe or lawyer who asks, he confirms what are the two primary requirements of a life well lived— the love of God, our Creator and Father, and the love of neighbour as our brother or sister in humanity, the object of God’s creative love. By telling the story (parable) of the good Samaritan, Jesus warns against the cold religious formalism of his time, which made many of his fellow Jews blind to the call to love and compassion. It is a   Samaritan—a foreigner who did not have the advantage of God’s revealed teaching, as did the Jews - that responds to the basic moral call to “do unto others and you would have them do unto you.”

Jesus parable is provocative. In practice, who was “the one who showed mercy on him”? The Samaritan, certainly, was a true neighbour to that injured man, but so was the innkeeper. He took it upon himself to spend many days caring for him until his wounds healed, preparing tasty meals for him and helping him to recover his strength. He served the injured man quietly, without drawing attention to himself. As Pope Francis said: “Love, after all, can never be just an abstraction. By its very nature, it indicates something concrete: intentions, attitudes, and behaviours that are shown in daily living.”[Pope Francis, Misericordiae vultus, no. 9.]

May we never lose sight of the importance of the ten commandments, nor of their role in uniting us to God and preparing us for eternal happiness.