And Who Is My Neighbor?

 

President Ronald Reagan (top) and John Hinckley

(Fifteenth Sunday of the Year (C): This homily was given on July 15, 2025 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Luke 10:25-37.)

 [For the audio version of this homily, click here: Fifteenth Sunday 2025]

 

“And who is my neighbor?”

This was the lawyer’s question to Jesus in today’s Gospel passage from Luke 10.  But this also needs to be our question!  Each of us needs to pose it and answer it in our own heart—honestly!—and then we need to compare our personal responses to the one Jesus gives in this text.

Now to properly understand Jesus’ answer, we need to “modernize” the main character of the story, the Samaritan.  We’re told in the parable that a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho was attacked and beaten by robbers, and then left to die on the side of the road.  This man—this innocent victim—was clearly Jewish, as were the two people who went by but refused to help (the priest and the Levite). 

The only one who stopped to lend a hand is identified as a “Samaritan.”  And he didn’t just put a Band Aid on the suffering Jew and then continue on his merry way; he treated the beaten man like a brother!  He cleaned his wounds and wrapped them in fresh bandages, and he provided for the man’s continued care. 

Now Scripture doesn’t tell us what the lawyer’s face looked like when he heard all this, but I’m quite certain he wasn’t smiling, because at the time most Jews and Samaritans hated each other!  In fact, I don’t think it would be a stretch to say that Jews and Samaritans of the first century normally had the same attitude toward one another that radical Islamic Fundamentalists (and groups like Hamas) currently have toward Jews and towards the citizens of the United States!

So, if you want to experience the force of Jesus’ message in the same way that the Jewish lawyer did who first heard the story, imagine two Americans neglecting a fellow citizen of theirs who had just been beaten and robbed, and a radical Islamic Fundamentalist coming to his aid and treating him like a member of his own family.

The point Jesus was making to the Jewish lawyer was simple: “Like it or not, Samaritans are people, too!  And all people have an inherent dignity, because they’ve been created in the image and likeness of God.  In that sense, everyone is your neighbor.” 

We currently live in a world where many people think of their neighbor as “everyone but . . .”—everyone but the unborn baby in the womb; everyone but the embryo with those stem cells I want; everyone but the person who has a skin color different than mine; everyone but the person who’s a member of this or that ethnic group; everyone but the person who’s a member of this or that religious organization; everyone but the person who hurt me and my family; everyone but the person who lives a sexually immoral lifestyle; everyone but [fill in the blank].

Do you know what always impressed me about Ronald Reagan?  It was that he considered John Hinckley to be his neighbor (in the sense that I’m using the term “neighbor” in this homily).  John Hinckley, of course, was the guy who tried to kill him back in 1981.  And yet, Reagan forgave Hinckley—publicly; he called him a “misguided young man,” and refused to allow hatred and bitterness to fill his heart.  He didn’t say that Hinckley should go free—nor should he have said that!—to let Hinckley go free at that time would have been a sin against justice.  But Reagan never forgot that Hinckley was a human being with an immortal soul.  In that he was just like our former Holy Father, Pope St. John Paul II, who forgave the man, Ali Acga, who shot him in St. Peter’s Square in May of that very same year, 1981.

And who is my neighbor? 

Jesus, in effect, said, “Everyone”; he did not say, “Everyone, but . . . “. 

What do you say?

 

The Mission of the 72 in Luke 10; the Mission of the Laity in the Church Today

(Fourteenth Sunday of the Year (C): This homily was given on July 6, 2025 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Luke 10:1-12, 17-20.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Fourteenth Sunday 2025]

What do you do to serve the Lord?

I think many lay Catholics would answer that question by telling you what they do in and around the church—“I’m a lector”; “I’m an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion”; “I’m an altar server”; “I’m a cantor”; “I sing in the choir”; “I’m on the parish finance council”.

Now please don’t misunderstand me—all these acts of service are good!  Lay people have essential roles to play in the liturgical and financial life of this and of every other parish.  But these roles are only secondary!  Even though they’re very important, they are not at the core of a lay person’s vocation in the Church.

In paragraph 898 of the Catechism, it says this (quoting one of the documents of Vatican II): “By reason of their special vocation it belongs to the laity to seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God’s will.”

Very simply, this means that if you’re a lay Catholic (and most of you are), then you are to live in the world, but you are not to be “of” the world; and you are to take your Catholic faith with you wherever you go.  That’s your primary calling!  Your faith, in other words, is to guide your personal life, your marital life (even in its private dimensions), your family life, your recreational life—and yes, even your life at work and/or at school.

When I was a deacon at St. Philip’s Church in Greenville in 1985, there was a lector at the parish who was involved in local politics.  He eventually became a big political figure at the state level; if I mentioned his name, many of you would recognize it immediately.  But this man was also pro-choice when it came to the issue of abortion.  Thankfully, he eventually was told he could no longer serve as a lector.  I mention him today because he’s a great example of a lay person who was “doing something for God” at Sunday Mass, but who was not doing for God what he really should have been doing for God out there in the world.  He was fulfilling a lay person’s “secondary role” very well—he was an excellent reader!—but he was failing miserably in fulfilling the primary role of a Catholic lay person in modern society. 

His problem, of course, was that he had “compartmentalized” his faith—as many Catholics today do!  In the words of Pope John Paul II—words that he wrote in his famous document on the laity, Christifideles Laici—this man had engaged in the “unwarranted separation of [his] faith from [his] life.”  (CL, 2)

I was reminded of the vocation of lay people as I reflected on today’s Gospel reading from Luke, chapter 10.  In this story, Jesus sent out 72 disciples on a special mission—a mission that was a little bit different from the one he had given to his 12 apostles.  Jesus told these 72 to go ahead of him to every town he intended to visit, to prepare the way for his arrival.  They weren’t supposed to lead services in synagogues; they were supposed to share their faith with people in a less formal manner, to prepare them to receive Jesus and his message.  That, of course, is exactly what you are supposed to do as Catholic lay people: by your words, actions and example—in the midst of your everyday activities—you are called to prepare others to receive Jesus and his message. 

I once spoke to a woman on the phone who wanted to register for the parish and have her daughter baptized.  That was wonderful.  But during the course of our conversation she indicated that she hadn’t practiced her faith in many years, and she had no intention of practicing her faith in the future.  Her idea was to have her daughter baptized, and then let her daughter decide what she wanted to be when she was old enough.  This woman obviously didn’t understand her role as a Catholic lay person!  As a mother, she was called to teach the faith to her child; she was called to be an example of faith and charity to her child—to prepare the way for Jesus to become the Lord of her child’s life! 

Parents, I hope that makes sense to you!  Jesus wants to visit your children and become the Lord of their lives—so he sends you ahead of him to prepare the way (like he sent the 72!).  Jesus wants to visit your workplace and change the lives of your co-workers, and so he sends you ahead of him to prepare the way.  Jesus wants to visit your school and change the lives of your fellow students, and so he sends you ahead of him to prepare the way.

Will everyone accept the message of faith and love that you offer?  Of course not!  Some—even perhaps in your family—will reject the truth of the Gospel, regardless of how lovingly and respectfully you present it to them!  Jesus made that fact clear to the 72. 

But the difficulty of the task doesn’t make it any less of an obligation! 

All of this makes me think of Blessed Carlo Acutis, who will be canonized a saint later this year.  Carlo was born in 1991 and died of leukemia in 2006 at the age of 15.  He was an ordinary person—a young, ordinary lay person—in so many ways: he enjoyed spending time with his friends; he loved to play sports; he loved animals; he played a musical instrument.  But in the midst of all those ordinary things, he had a strong and unwavering faith in and love for Jesus and the sacraments—which interestingly enough he did NOT get from his parents!  In fact, his mother says that when Carlo was born, she had only been to Mass 3 times in her entire life. Carlo evangelized her and her husband (he in essence fulfilled the mission of the 72 for them)—mostly by asking them questions about God that they couldn’t answer!  In an article that appeared in the National Catholic Register his mother was quoted as saying:

“[Carlo] pushed me to do research and to read. I began to take theology courses and reflect on life. I discovered the beauty of my faith. We are all on a journey in the spiritual life, but because of Carlo, I was inspired to start that journey.  Carlo saved me.”  Later on she added, “He read the Bible every day as well as the Catechism put together by Pope John Paul II. Carlo would say that the Bible was his compass. By the age of 11, he was teaching catechism to younger children.”

Of course, what Carlo is most known for around the world is the skill he had working with computers.  Some have called him a computer genius. Computers, as we all know, can be used for good or they can be used for evil.  Carlo used them for good.  As it said in the Register article, “Once he mastered computer programming, Carlo began to use it to spread the Catholic faith. He developed a website on Eucharistic miracles, which he worked on for four years. The website has a compilation of 196 stories of Eucharistic miracles. It has been turned into an exhibit that has traveled the world.”

That exhibit has even traveled here to Rhode Island.  Many of us, I’m sure, have been blessed to see it.  No doubt it’s led many people all over the world to open their hearts to Jesus and the Catholic faith.

So here we have an ordinary lay person—a teenager no less—fulfilling the mission of the 72 disciples—for his parents, and for people in many other places.  So it can be done—by anyone—at any age!

St. Luke tells us that when the 72 came back from the mission Jesus had given them, they had good news to report.  Yes, they had faced difficulty and opposition, but because of their efforts many people were healed and many lives were changed for the better.

Your mission as a lay person in 2025 is like the mission of the 72 in many respects, but it’s different in this one sense: their mission lasted only for a brief period of time; yours—like mine—lasts a lifetime.  When our missions are finally finished—on Judgment Day—we also will be asked to give a report to Jesus of what we’ve done in his service.  Let’s pray that when that moment comes we, like the 72—and like Blessed Carlo Acutis—will be able to tell Jesus lots of good news!