From the Gospel: Stepping into vulnerability – Fr Carlo Calleja

Fifteenth Sunday in ordinary time, Cycle C: Today’s readings: Deuteronomy 30:10-14; Colossians 1:15-20; Luke 10:25-37.

If today’s men and women are looking for something that will challenge the status quo and provoke their way of thinking and acting, few, if any, would turn to a parable for this effect. Yet the parable of the Good Samaritan serves this purpose even though we have become so accustomed to it that its edges seem to have become dull.

Whenever I have heard the story I’ve always been quick to judge (admittedly with a hint of self-righteousness) the priest and the Levite for not helping the victim lying on the streets of Jericho. Filling in with some background helps put it into perspective. The rigorous laws stipulated in the Book of Leviticus that forbade the Levite, and even more the priest, from touching a dead body, sound trivial for us who are brought up in a different culture.

Yet we must acknowledge that both men were torn between obeying two laws that come in conflict with each other in this particular situation, and then needing to decide on a course of action. One of them was the duty to preserve ritual purity to be able to offer sacrifices to God in the...