Parable of the Good Samaritan
The Gospel for this Sunday, July 14, 2103 is very familiar to most of us. There are even ministries named after it, the Good Samaritan Ministry providing assistance to those in need. This week, in his first trip outside the Vatican, Pope Francis referred to the parable in his homily in Lampedusa. Lampedusa is the southern Mediterranean island which is a major point of arrival for impoverished immigrants, mostly from Africa and the Middle East, seeking to reach Europe. Lampedusa is much like our border areas between the US and Mexico.
According to John Allen, Vatican correspondent, authorities estimate that as many as 20,000 migrants have died since the late 1990’s attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea by boat en route to Europe, with survivors generally ending up in detention centers in settings such as Lampedusa. Pope Francis made a bold statement by making his first trip outside of the Vatican to be in solidarity with the migrants. He began his remarks Monday by saying he had read recently of a tragedy in which migrants died while trying to make a boat crossing, and the thought of it was “like a splinter in the heart that causes suffering.” “I felt the duty to come here today to pray, to perform a gesture of closeness, but also to awaken our consciences so that what happened doesn’t repeat itself,” he said.
He compared apathy in the face of the suffering of immigrants to the Gospel story of the Good Samaritan, in which a half-dead man lying in the street is ignored until the Samaritan finally stops to help.
“So many of us, and I include myself, are disoriented,” the Pope said. “We’re no longer attentive to the world in which we live. We don’t care about it; we don’t take care of what God created for all; and we’re no longer capable even of taking care of one another.”
“When this disorientation takes on the dimensions of the world, it leads to tragedies such as what we’ve seen [here],” the Pope said.
He spoke out against the “globalization of indifference” that leads to tragedies like the deaths of so many migrants seeking a better life.
My Reflection
When I’ve prayed with this parable before, I have always really resonated with the biblical character that stopped to help and felt pretty good about how I live my life. It really has been a “feel good” parable until this week when I prayed with the parable and Pope Francis’s homily from Lampedusa. This homily and some of the commentary from John Allen really helped me to get in touch with something that makes me a little uncomfortable and is pretty challenging…..the thought that I, too, can become disoriented and fall into the trap of globalization of indifference that Pope Francis spoke of and not just as it relates to immigration. I had to come to the sad realization that I, too, at times pass my neighbors who are in need. Sometimes those neighbors are friends, sometimes strangers and sometimes family. I only came to this realization by placing myself in the gospel scene and begging the Lord to place me with whatever character I needed to be with. The Lord gently revealed that I, too, have been the other biblical characters who have not helped for various reasons. Who represents the immigrants in your life symbolically or realistically?
Be honest with the Lord and expect Him to be honest with you!
Imaginative Prayer Experience
I invite you to place yourself in the scene of the Good Samaritan Parable using Ignatian Contemplation, read the excerpt from the homily below and ponder the questions that Pope Francis posed…….
The following is an excerpt from the homily:
In this world of globalization we have fallen into a globalization of indifference. We are accustomed to the suffering of others, it doesn’t concern us, it’s none of our business. The globalization of indifference makes us all “unnamed,” leaders without names and without faces. “Adam, where are you?” “Where is your brother?” These are the two questions that God puts at the beginning of the story of humanity, and that He also addresses to the men and women of our time, even to us. But I want to set before us a third question: “Who among us has wept for these things, and things like this?” Who has wept for the deaths of these brothers and sisters? Who has wept for the people who were on the boat? For the young mothers carrying their babies? For these men who wanted something to support their families? We are a society that has forgotten the experience of weeping, of “suffering with”: the globalization of indifference has taken from us the ability to weep! In the Gospel we have heard the cry, the plea, the great lament: “Rachel weeping for her children . . . because they are no more.” Herod sowed death in order to defend his own well-being, his own soap bubble. And this continues to repeat itself.
Let us all stop and ponder what Pope Francis asked the audience to consider:
- Let us ask the Lord to wipe out [whatever attitude] of Herod remains in our hears
- Let us ask the Lord for the grace to weep over our indifference, to weep over the cruelty in the world, in ourselves, and even in those who anonymously make socio-economic decisions that open the way to tragedies like this.
- “Who has wept?”
- “Who in today’s world has wept?”
Let me hear from you in the comments or click the “like” button if this post speaks to you……
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“Taken from the The Hopeless Romantic: Falling in Love with God site of Patti Clement. www.patticlement.wordpress.com Used with Permission.”
The Hopeless Romantic: Falling in Love with God 