'Hear the Word!' by Deacon Charles Paolino: Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

A reading from the book of Deuteronomy

(Chapter 30:10-14)

In this passage, Moses is addressing the Israelites near the end of their long journey from Egypt and shortly before he will turn over leadership to Joshua, who will lead the people into the Promised Land. Moses has just given the people some lurid examples of the punishment God will visit on them and their land if they do not live by the law he has handed down. And here, God reminds them, through Moses, that he has made the law so clear that no one can claim ignorance. No doubt, this passage is referring to the Decalogue, the ten commandments that scripture says God himself wrote in stone tablets kept in the Ark of the Covenant. We have learned God’s will for us in classrooms, in Scripture, in homilies. We know what God wants of us. Can we apply his words to Israel to ourselves?  “It is not up in the sky …. Nor is it across the sea …. it is already on your lips and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out.” 

Responsorial Psalm

(Psalm 69)

This psalm, which has 37 verses, has other implications, but here it encourages us to put our trust in God when we are in trouble. Perhaps the psalmist was not thinking so much of seeking miraculous cures of physical ailments as he was thinking of relief from pain from such sources as anxiety, worry, and anger. Do you turn first to God when your life is upset? What do you seek from God?

A reading from Saint Paul’s letter to the Colossians

(Chapter 1:15-20)

This passage is a beautiful and lucid statement of who we believe Jesus to be: “Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, … He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the Church.” And God has blessed us by allowing us to encounter the person described in those soaring phrases, in fact, to become members of his Mystical Body, the Church, and to be embraced by him in the intimacy of the Eucharist. He lives. He is with us every day. Do you feel his presence as real in your life?

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke

(Chapter 10:25-37)

 Dictionaries generally define the term “Good Samaritan” as meaning, for example, “one ready and generous in helping those in distress.” And that is how the term is used in everyday speech. A woman is embarrassed in a checkout line, because she can’t find her credit card. The woman behind her in line, a stranger, offers to charge the groceries on her own card. That second woman is a “good Samaritan.” Of course, the origin of the term is more complicated; Jesus deliberately complicated it by making the central figure in the parable a Samaritan. Because of religious and cultural differences, Samaritans and Jews in the first century had nothing to do with each other. So, when a man asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” and Jesus answered with a story about a Samaritan helping a Jewish man who had been beaten and robbed, he was saying, in effect, everyone is your neighbor. Jesus, who said the “whole law” came down to love of God and love of neighbor, practiced this principle by interacting with people that his fellow Jews would shun. The people of Israel were not alone in their tribal mentality; it was the norm in that era which was what made Jesus’ message so revolutionary. How revolutionary does it seem in our time? How do we practice it every day?   

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Painting, "The Good Samaritan," by Jacob Jordaens, circa 1616. Louvre Abu Dhabi. Public domain.

Excerpts from the English translation of the Lectionary for Mass © 1969, 1981, 1997, International Commission on English in the Liturgy Corporation (ICEL). All rights reserved.

Charles Paolino is managing editor at RENEW International. He is a permanent deacon of the Diocese of Metuchen.