Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Homily)

July 10, 2016 9:00 am · Father Jim Blantz

First a couple of things on this particular Gospel reading: "What must I do to have eternal life?" Another version of that said "Keep the commandments." This is roughly different wording but the same idea. It doesn't say anything about accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior as some of these people seem to think. The idea is when you get baptized, you received the right to enter heaven. That it's a duty to put you in heaven, unless you revoke your baptism by a mortal sin. That turns you aside. So long as you have not committed a mortal sin, you are guaranteed heaven. Of course you are not guaranteed what will happen in the future.

We tend to condemn the insensitivity of the priest and Levite going down the hill and seeing this man who that had been mugged. It isn't that obvious, that wasn't the idea. These people, Orthodox Jews, clergy were forbidden from seeing a dead body. Even today an Orthodox Jew, when a good friend dies, they go to the funeral home, he must be positioned at all times, that he does not see that body. So the Levite and the priest going down to Jerusalem for their duties in the Temple, were forbidden to look at a dead body, and they didn't know what that body was, they knew others would be along, so it was permissible that they would ignore this situation. But know let's look at it from the point view of this poor guy that was mugged. The Samaritans were about as loving to the Jews as the Moslems are today. You can imagine if a poor Jewish man is stabbed or something or another and the only one that comes up to help him is a Moslem, you imagine the panic that would be there.