A Homily for the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

+ The teaching of the parable of the Good Samaritan is crystal clear: show mercy to your neighbour in need as did the Samaritan and do not pass by on the other side of the road as did the priest and the levite—busy as they no doubt were with the important matters of God.
 
The history of the Church rightly boasts of centuries of such practical mercy. Before secular states seized and socialised welfare programmes the Church, particularly the monasteries and other later religious houses had been caring for the unfortunate for centuries. Even in the post-enlightenment secular world new religious congregations sprang up to care for those whom these supposedly enlightened societies regarded as of no value. France has given birth to many such congregations, pre-eminently the Daughters of Charity founded by St Vincent de Paul (†1660) whose good works have shed the light of Christ in many countries.
 
In more recent times we have the powerful witness of St Teresa of Calcutta (†1997) whose care for the “poorest of the poor” ensured that the loving and merciful face of Christ was and is a living reality in a turbulent Church and increasingly post-Christian world. So too her voice raised time and time again in defence of the right to life of the unborn child was that of a prophet on fire with the love and justice of Almighty God—true charity indeed.
 
Yes, the witness of the great saints of practical charity is something of which the Church is rightly proud and celebrates. It is a witness which calls each of us not only to support such activities in our own days, but to engage in them when our neighbour is in need—and not to cross the road and to hurry on by in our preoccupations, whatever or how seemingly important they may be.
 
Yet we must also avoid the danger of rushing to become Christian activists, of ‘doing good’ as it were, all day every day every week. For whilst we may well be engaging in good works, activism, in spite of its good intentions and effects, is a profound misinterpretation of the Gospel. Not only does it lead to burn-out at the human level, it does so spiritually, denying the very nature and purpose of human persons created in the image and likeness of God.
 
What we must never forget is that the commandment to love our neighbour, of which the Parable of the Good Samaritan is the exemplar par excellence, is the second commandment. As Our Lord teaches in the Holy Gospel of this Mass, there is another commandment that comes first, and which takes precedence: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with the love of thy whole heart, and thy whole soul, and thy whole strength and thy whole mind.”
 
Of course, this is something that St Vincent de Paul, St Teresa of Calcutta and all the other founders of religious congregations engaged in the apostolate of Christian charity knew and believed: their religious had (have) a regime of prayer that in our own day many monasteries would find too demanding—and all of this before, during and after more than a full day’s active service of Christ in others. That is to say that they knew and practised the reality that Christian charity comes from and must be sustained by that profound relationship with the person of Jesus Christ which is nourished through faithful and fruitful participation in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the sacraments, the other liturgical rites and personal prayer and devotion. A Christian who prays—cleric, religious or lay man or woman—is able to practice the Charity of Christ. One who does not may well be able to do many good things (as may a person who does not believe in Christ), but such good works are not Christian charity because they do not arise from that worship of Almighty God which is essential if we are to be whom we are called to be and to do that which He wishes us to accomplish,
 
Recent decades have shown us the sad reality that when the demands of the life of prayer are diminished in a religious congregation their apostolate is quickly abandoned. There are other factors, certainly, but it is nevertheless true (as Mother Teresa’s missionaries witness to this day) that, no matter what our particular vocation, if we are to practice charity, we must first know Christ in whose name we hope to practice it. The first commandment comes first. The second follows and necessarily flows from it.
 
Our task, then, is to renew our connection to Christ, the source of all charity, through our fervent and faithful assistance at Holy Mass, in our worthy reception of the other sacraments, in the devout praying of the Hours of the Divine Office, and in personal and devotional prayer. Formed and fortified thus, we shall not pass by on the other side of the road when the occasion arises: rather, we shall be able to recognise the face of Christ in those who suffer, and thus accept the opportunity to worship Him all the more. +