3 October 2022
Monday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
What must we do to inherit eternal life? And who is our neighbor? These are the questions that are posed by the scholar of the law to Jesus in today’s gospel but they really are questions that we all have as the deepest aspects of our existence and as the basis of how we find meaning in our life. And the answers:
“You shall love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart,
with all your being,
with all your strength,
and with all your mind,
and your neighbor as yourself.”
And, our neighbor is anyone, yes, anyone who is suffering whom we can treat with mercy, as was exhibited by Jesus’ story of the “Good Samaritan.” If this central command of Christian faith seems easy, why is there so much suffering and hatred in our world? Alternatively, if this command seems dauntingly impossible, all the more reason why we should return to the Lord with our whole being in prayer, receive the Eucharist, go to Confession, and beg the Lord to fulfill His command of love within us. May we be the Lord’s worthy servants of love in this world of immense suffering.