Looking Out for God

“Am I someone who really seeks the good and really seeks to avoid what's evil? Now again, you might say 'oh, that's obvious.' It's not obvious, not at all.”

“The voice of God is in us. What is it? It's the voice of conscience. It's the keen awareness of the moral law. It's the voice of someone who's commanding us, urging us to be good”

“One way or the other, we must find a way of getting along with one another. If we are not making progress by building on our strengths, perhaps we can find compassion in remembering our weakness.”

“What people really desire is our time...Taking time to be with someone, prioritizing a simple act of communion to sit with someone and listen, to talk and laugh, to be together in a moment of care and concern, is perhaps the greatest mercy we can show to our neighbor.”

“Merciful love is a powerful force that acts to relieve the misfortunes of others, to dispel the things that compromise their welfare, and to bring about their full flourishing as human beings”

“the teaching of Jesus is that there is no loving God independently of showing mercy to the victims left abandoned by the side of the road”

“The human race has been wounded by sin, and though the Jewish Law, represented by the priest and the levite, could advise people to avoid sin, it could do nothing to heal the damage human sinfulness had inflicted on the world, or on individual human beings”

“In the act of loving our neighbour, we display the same love which God showed when in the person of Christ he came to the aid of a wounded and broken humanity”

“The Samaritan...took him to an inn and paid the innkeeper to look after him. Unanimously, all interpreters see the inn as the Church: not to be judged on its exterior state, but on the devotion in the heart of its ministers.”

“God is light and God’s light in this world is meant, first of all, to help us see each other’s faces correctly. Religion is about charity towards each other. Everything else, dogma and morals included, is secondary.”

“those who did not stop to help him, the priest and the scribe, did so for reasons that go far beyond the question of their individual selfishness and selflessness. They did so for certain ideological, religious reasons...The Samaritan, who had the least to lose religiously, was able to be moved by simple human compassion.”

“Instead of inviting us to give to others, the parable shows us how God gives to us, how salvation comes to us, how the kingdom enters our lives.”

“once we understand this is about how Jesus heals a fallen humanity, that's now our job, we got our marching orders. Our job is to look around to see who are those who are lying helpless and wounded by the side of the road. And are we instruments of grace...?”

“How have I moved outside my comfort zone and paid attention to the need around me? And what did I do to stay there?”

“Christians, reread this story sometime today, identify yourself with the man wounded half-dead by the side of the road and then rejoice in the Christ who has come to save you, has come to redeem you”

“In this polarized world, how would I react to one I regarded as an enemy acting as a neighbor showing me mercy?”

“I took away the lay missioners’ and Maryknoll approach of being present to the communities they were joining, where they offer their gifts to the people, as the Samaritan bandaged, transported and housed the robbers’ victim”

“So, every person, too, whether just or unjust, saint or sinner has been imprinted with the image of God, marked out by his nature as belonging to God, and so endowed with an innate sacred dignity. Hence, we are called to show reverence to one another.”

“From the parable we learn that when we are legally minded, then there is the likelihood to lose the essence of human relationship. When the emphasis is placed on the Law and not on love, then we become less human.”

“However, due to our inclination to sin, we tend not to think rationally, but instead to rationalize. We can’t think clearly, because we are not seeking truth, we are seeking our own pleasure.”

“The more one builds their faith, the more time one spends communicating with Christ, the more we will be able to show compassion in these times where we encounter those bloodied, beaten people in our lives”

“It wasn’t a person’s position in life that made them a good person in the Lord’s eyes. Thinking of one’s self did not make a person holy. Caring about other people and being of service to them in their time of need, is what makes a person holy.”

“With a keen sense of our co-dependence with all of creation we can hear the message of Jesus in today’s gospel with fresh ears so that our mission of healing our neighbor extends as well to the care of God’s creation”

“The love of Jesus Christ carries us beyond the requirements of justice, bringing peace and healing where hope has been lost, and lifting us to the immeasurable joys of heaven”

“First, we will need to begin to acknowledge the prejudices which inhibit us and the fears which paralyse us. And then we will have to begin to ‘die’ a little, so that we may ‘see’ Jesus and allow him to move us to action”

“The Ten Commandments have two tables, the first of which commands the love of God, the second of which commands the works of justice and compassion”