Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Robert Frost
Mass Intentions Week 11 July 2010
Gormanstown Church
Sun 11 July
10.00am Willie and Catherine Farrell (A)
Baptism: Gavin Mc Cormack and Finn Moore
Kilcullen Church
Sat 10 July
11.00am Thomas Power (A)
7.30pm Vigil Frank McEvoy (A)
Sunday 11 July
9.00am Intentions of the people of the Parish
11.00am Michael and Maura Cogan (A),
Pray for William Mitchell (A) Thomas Power (A) (Late of Kill)
Monday 12 July
9.30am Fr. Sean Collier (A)
Tuesday 13 July
9.30am Stephen and Margaret Dempsey (A)
Wed 14 July
9.30am Eugene and Mary Brennan (A)
Pray for Bernard Hillis (Birthday Remembrance)
Thursday 15 July
9.30am
Friday 16 July
9.30am Intentions of names of Parish List
Saturday 17 July
11.00am Mary and Joe Ryan (A)
7.30pm Patrick and Anne Callan (A)
Here is one of the earliest interpretations of this story about the Good Samaritan. The writer was Origen of Alexandria (c. 185 AD - c. 254): “The man who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho is Adam. Jerusalem is Paradise. Jericho is this world. The thieves are the forces of the enemy. The priest is the Law. The Levite is the prophets. The Samaritan is Christ. The wounds are disobedience. The horse is the body of Christ. The inn that is open to all who wish to enter is the Church. The two denarii are the Father and the Son. The inn-keeper is the pastor of the flock, whose duty is to care. The Samaritan’s promise to return indicates the Saviour’s Second Coming.” Origen was the father of the ‘Allegorical Method’, and this is an example of it at full strength. It may seem rather strained at times, but it represented a determination that the Scriptures would not remain dead on the page but would come alive in the present.
An even earlier writer, Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 AD - c. 215), also sees the Samaritan as Jesus: “Who can this neighbour be but the Saviour himself? Who but he has had pity on us as we lay almost dead from the dark forces of this world, with so many wounds, so many fears and passions, so much anger, so much sorrow, so much deception, so many deceptive pleasures? Jesus alone can heal these wounds.”
Left to ourselves we might have interpreted this story in a purely moralistic way: here was a good model for us of practical charity. But by putting this reading with others that are directly about Jesus himself, the Liturgy holds this ancient interpretation before us. The first thing about the Good Samaritan is that “he came near,” while the priest and the Levite “passed by on the other side.” In Jesus, the divine Person, the Word, came near to us, took on our flesh and lived among us. This is the only possible connection with the first reading: “The Word is very near to you.” Likewise the second reading is about God coming near us in Jesus: “He is the image of the invisible God.”
In the moralistic interpretation of this story the Good Samaritan would be oneself. We would see ourselves called to reach into our inner resources and produce the goods from there; we would be on the giving end. But in this deeper interpretation the Good Samaritan is Jesus, and we are the traveller fallen among robbers; we are on the receiving end. God in Christ has reached out to us. Leo the Great (pope from 440 - 461) said, “Christ is the hand of God's mercy stretched out to us.”
We are told to “Go and do likewise.” But we are told this at the end of the story, not at the beginning. By the end of the story we have seen what our real resource is: it is not ourselves and our ambiguous generosity, it is God's bounty in Christ.
There is nothing so humiliating as to be the object of cold charity: the skimmed milk of human kindness. I had to share space for a number of years with an 18th-century fresco that showed some saint dispensing charity to beggars. He looked much more fixed in his role than the beggars did in theirs. I often wondered what he would do if there were no beggars. He needed them more than they needed him. Their luck might change, and one day they might feed themselves. Then he wouldn’t know who he was. Charity always has a sick twist in it if it doesn’t flow out through us from the heart of God.
The three stages of Lectio divina are:1. Reading. 2.Meditation.3.Prayer. .
Low Cost Counselling The service works with people over 16 years of age and provides a safe and secure one-to-one counselling environment. To arrange an appointment or for more information please see contact information below:Colm Stanley MIACP 087 793 0577 (now available in the Parish).
Recommended Reading
Anam Cara—John O’ Donohue
Available from the Parish Centre Shop
