Fifteenth Sunday of the Year. July 11, 2010

Mass with the Medical Mission Sisters in Fox Chase

Reading from Luke's Gospel of the Good Samaritan



The Good Samaritan story encourages us to be generous of spirit like the Samaritan and, when we conduct ourselves in the way that the Samaritan conducts himself, to expect also the admiration of all of history. Sometimes I am sure, you are like me and you wish you were as lucky as that Samaritan and that you had two silver coins to distribute to every needy person that you meet on the street. Such activity would certainly gain some admiration and affirm a status even among those who don’t like you.

Father, I hear you say, be careful. This story is among the best in the Christian canon. Please respect it and don’t question the circumstances or the motives of the Samaritan. He certainly acted out of generosity of heart especially in contrast to that ignorant priest and Levite who passed by the groaning man in the ditch.

I do remember a first experience of generosity when I was very small and playing in the backyard of my home. A hobo came to the kitchen door and asked my mother for something to eat. I bashfully watched from a distance while this hobo sat on the back steps, exchanged conversation with my mother and ate some of the food that I thought belonged to me. It was my first lesson in selfishness seeing myself in contrast to the generous spirit of my mother.
Jesus establishes the Samaritan in this story as the ideal, the unexpected stranger usually shunned who quietly reaches out across ethnic and religious boundaries to exercise basic charity, identifying himself as a remedy to human misfortune and suffering.

In the light of the teachings that come down to us in the gospels I think of this story as evidence of the generosity of the pre-Christian Jewish law. Certainly in the story Jesus expresses his discontent with the religious establishment by ridiculing the conduct of the priest and the Levite but the respect for Jewish law is clear. The story suggests a broader way of considering the Jewish law. But the story falls short of a deeper understanding of the place of Jesus among us.

We find a deeper understanding in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 25. 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

I experienced a vivid illustration of this on my visit to Calcutta some years ago. We visited the original of the hospices for the dying poor that Mother Teresa had established. There were two large dormitory rooms in the hospice, one for men and own for women. Those dying and they literally were so, were clothed in green smocks and resting quietly on low cots. The rooms were overseen by hovering sisters. Some young men and women volunteers sat with the dying, holding their hands, feeding them or giving them drink.

Everything was peaceful until suddenly I heard horns honking outside on the busy street and there was a bustling at the street door. Two volunteers, young men who appeared to be from Korea, made their way from the street and through the door; between them they carried an emaciated and street-soiled man, hardly alive. They passed by me and their thin burden accosted my sense of sight and smell. He looked little better than a piece of trash. He had been brought to the hospice by someone who knew he deserved a more dignified death than one on the curbside.

I had already seen the bathing room where the volunteers were taking this man and I knew instantly that they accepted the responsibility of carrying this poor dying man there because of what they had learned from Mother Teresa. Written in big letters over the bathing area, Mother Teresa had placed the words, “The Body of Christ.”



With a full understanding of Christian teaching we complete the story of the Good Samaritan by considering Matthew 25, by considering the identity of Jesus and by considering his brutal reception by the powers of religion and government. It is he who is left to die in the ditch, ignored by the priest and the Levite.

As Luke introduces the story of the Good Samaritan, the scribe who occasions the story speaks of the law of the love of God and neighbor. Then Luke has the scribe question Jesus in this way: Because he wished to justify himself the scribe asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Should questions about the law of love of God and love of neighbor arise today in the context of

today’s world, young thoughtful persons might ask the same kind of question. But I suggest that, when they wonder about justifying themselves, their question will not be about the neighbor. They will ask rather “Who is my God?” “Who is my God?” How would you respond? Perhaps you would tell the same story that Jesus told, knowing that our God is present in the spirit of all those in need as well as in the spirit of the one who reaches out in response to that need.

These two photos illustrate the July 4th celebration at Independence Hall. The drum and bugle corps was a big hit.

====================(Pictures: Mayor Nutter speaking at Independence Hall. View of Liberty Bell)

PRAYER FOR THE OPENING OF THE
CELEBRATION OF THE FOURTH OF JULY, 2010
ON THE STEPS OF INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA.
Give God the praise and blessings to God’s People!
Brothers and Sisters gathered here on this the 234th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we gather in the same spirit as those who first heard it proclaimed. In our prayer we read the words of George Washington when he resigned his Commission as Commander in Chief of the Army in 1783. This prayer asked the guidance we needed as a Nation in 1783 and continues to ask what we need in this different world of the 21st Century. It echoes the words of the ancient prophet Hosea.

Washington spoke in 1783: “I now make it my earnest prayer,

that God would have You (leaders of the various states), and the States over which you preside, in his holy protection,

that he would incline the hearts of the Citizens
· to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to Government,
· to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow Citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the Field,
· and finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do Justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that Charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation.”

Washington prayed to our God who has ears to hear us and eyes to see us and we pray in this season in particular for those with the duty of governance, our President and those in Congress, our Mayor Nutter and City Council members. We pray for the unemployed, for those beset by disasters such as that on the Gulf Coast, for parents, especially the parents of children who require a special love, for the homeless, for immigrants, for the safety of those guarding our public places, for those serving in the Armed Forces, for volunteers who extend their helping hands.

Send us, O gracious God, your Spirit so that we become more clearly a beacon of freedom, justice and peace for our suffering world. Let us say: Amen.

At the Jesuit Secondary Education Colloquium June 20-25 at Santa Clara University, we wined and dined. The campus grounds provided a comfortable bug-free site for our meals. Below we ate at Fisherman's Wharf on an evening free of meetings.

Some of us made presentations. All of us learned something from colleagues attending and representing about forty of the 60 or so Jesuit high schools in the USA, Puerto Rico and Canada.

June 4, 2010: The evening before Baccalaureate and Graduation, Prep senior members of the Black and Latino Culture Club gather with mentors and graduates who decorate them with Kinte Cloth. All of this group from the class of 2010 are college bound, one to Georgetown, one to Stanford, and the rest to a variety of other universities and colleges including Morris College in South Carolina.

June 6: These two Prep grads in the class of 2010, Chris Dougherty and Harry Smith, are both planning to attend Villanova University. Chris is a pole vaulter who sails well over his 5'9" and leaves the bar at 14'6" Harry refused to yield to senior slump and kept up a blistering pace of As and B pluses.

HERE ARE MY FINAL WORDS TO THE 231 GRADUATES AT THE END OF THE CEREMONY

Prep brothers, class of 1960. Welcome back!

Faculty and staff, parents and friends, who contributed such energy and attention to the class of 2010 and to this graduation, we owe you a debt of thanks.

Prep Brothers, Class of 2010. You have heard a lot of advice over the past four years and there is no need for me to add to it. I simply share some bits of conversation for the benefit of the rest of us here, parents, faculty, relatives and friends.

My dear sister is the principal at West Philadelphia Catholic High School. She is also a religious sister of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, an IHM. Recently a graduate of West complained to her about the quality of today’s young people. He was referring to Catholics especially. “College kids have no understanding of their faith; they don’t even know the seven sacraments and, if they go to a church, they don’t show the proper respect.” My sister defended the preparation for lives of faith and service that West Catholic students receive. But the man asked her, “Don’t you worry about their souls after they graduate?” And my sister replied, “No!” She was confident. The young people she knew would find their way to be faithful to their families, to their faith and civic communities.

Not long after that conversation, my sister, Sister Bur, they call her at school, came across a West Catholic senior in the school’s detention room, the jug room at West, and she said to him, “What are you doing here?” And he looked a little sheepish. And my sister blurted out the question, “Am I going to have to worry about your soul after graduation?” And he straightened up, “Oh no, Sister Bur!”

Class of 2010. Look around you. See the class of 1960. See your parents and guardians and teachers and coaches and mentors, all those who have been watching your backs these four years. We love you, we know the great good that you can accomplish and we are not worried about your souls now that you have graduated. And if you think we are a bunch of pollyannas, read the astute columnist David Brooks of the New York Times. He said a few month back, "if you want to feel really optimistic about the country, look at people under thirty...this group under thirty is an extremely wholesome and promising generation." God bless you. Go, as Saint Ignatius directs us all and set the world on fire.



June 8: Prep underclassmen prepare for the college tour organized by the Black and Latino Culture Club. This year is a three-day tour to Western Pennsylvania and part of Maryland.





June 9: Three of the grads from Gesu School, class of 2010. All three got prizes at graduation. The two on the left will attend Saint Joseph's Prep. The young man in the handsome bowtie will attend West Philadelphia Catholic High School.

Memorial Day Trip

Frank and I went to Wernersville to visit our friend Jack Martinez. We knew him in Baltimore where he worked tirelessly to investigate the housing markets that were so tilted against blacks owning homes. Jack told us this story of a surprising rebuke from his Jesuit superior: he had taken part on a picket line at the offices of one of the most unscrupulous of the housing speculators. When he did not challenge an injunction and was not arrested with the other pickets, his Jesuit superior later asked, "why? The others would have been treated better if you had joined them."

Here we are in Maclean, Va. in the Church of St. Luke where my brother has just joined in the Memorial Day performance of the Washington Men's Chorus. Several trained and talented musicians make up the heart of the chorus and my brother enjoys singing with them. This particular concert is a tribute to the men and women in the armed forces. We talked later about the enduring nature of war.




My first cousin, once removed, Sarah Bur Gillespie, came to visit my three sisters and me in Jeanne's Baltimore living room. Sarah has the daunting task of monitoring infectious diseases in the 114 federal prisons around the country. She told of going sleepless some nights recently worrying about the spread of tuberculosis among groups of prisoners in varying places around the country. At this time, though, she believes that she and her assitants have brought the situation under control.
Who is this wonderful family? I officiated at the wedding of Kevin O'Reilly and Carol Beck in September of 1986. Here they are in front of their Baltimore home with their three wonderful children, high school boys John and Andrew and their fifth grader daughter Ann. John and Andrew are members of a Quaker youth group that will hike the Appalachian Trail for three weeks this summer. And Ann is a favorite in the family's church community at Saint Vincent's. The three are blessed to have steady loving parents, Carol who gets things done as a consultant for foundations interested in funding educational projects in the Baltimore school district and Kevin whose architectural skills are put to excellent use at Saint Ambrose Housing Aid Center especially in the hundreds of renovation projects that the Center has undertaken. Kevin and John will go to the Dominican Republic this summer for a week of volunteer work at an orphanage.

NEW EDIT

On the day of this photo, Kevin told me a story about his recent trip to a reunion of his class of architectural majors at Notre Dame University. "My two boys think I'm dimwitted and only got lucky to marry someone with real wisdom and a career. In any case they consented to go with me to my Notre Dame reunion and we drove out there together. After that long ride we got off the Interstate and wound through the suburban neighborhoods on the last miles. We could see the gold dome in the distance but when we made the final turn onto Saint Joseph Drive, the manicured campus unfolded in front of us and the gold dome appeared in the evening sun. My boys looked at me and one said, "Holy crab, dad, you went here?"