Monday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
Intention: For refugees, that through the world’s efforts, safety and peace and new promise for their futures will soon be theirs.
Today’s Gospel | Luke 10: 25-37
There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test Jesus and said, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” He said in reply, “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.” He replied to him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.”
But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. They stripped and beat him and went off leaving him half-dead. A priest happened to be going down that road, but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. Likewise a Levite came to the place, and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side.
But a Samaritan traveler who came upon him was moved with compassion at the sight. He approached the victim, poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them. Then he lifted him up on his own animal, took him to an inn, and cared for him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper with the instruction, ‘Take care of him. If you spend more than what I have given you, I shall repay you on my way back.’ Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?” He answered, “The one who treated him with mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
From the First Meditation for the Time of Retreat | Saint John Baptist de La Salle
You, then, whom God has called to this ministry, work according to the grace that has been given to you to instruct by teaching and to exhort by encouraging those who are entrusted to your care, guiding them with attention and vigilance in order to fulfill toward them the principal duty of fathers and mothers toward their children.
Prayer
Eternal Father, you call us to be neighbors to one another, especially to those most in need of our attention and care. Teach us to search our lives for the fallen, the weary, the wounded, the lonely, the poor. May we not “pass by on the opposite side”, but stop to help and to carry our brothers and sisters to a healing. We pray that we might be worthy ambassadors of your peace. We ask this of you who lives and reigns with your Son and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.