⛑️The liturgy of the Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost establishes a profound contrast between the Old and the New Covenant. Christ is presented as the new Moses and the true Good Samaritan, who not only points to the Law but fulfills it and heals the wounds of fallen humanity. While the old priesthood, represented by the priest and the Levite, could diagnose sin but not offer a cure, Christ pours out the oil and wine of the sacraments to restore life. This Sunday celebrates the superiority of the ministry of the Spirit, which gives life, over the ministry of the letter, which condemned, highlighting charity as the fullness of the Law.
🙏 Introit (Ps 69:2-3 | ibid., 4)Deus, in adiutórium meum inténde... O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me. Let my enemies who seek my life be confounded and ashamed. Ps. Let them be turned backward and be ashamed who desire evil against me. ℣. Glory be to the Father...
📜 Epistle (II Cor 3:4-9)
Brethren: Such is the confidence we have through Christ towards God. Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves: but our sufficiency is from God. Who also hath made us fit ministers of the new testament, not in the letter but in the spirit. For the letter killeth: but the spirit quickeneth. Now if the ministration of death, engraven with letters upon stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses, for the glory of his countenance, which is made void: How shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather in glory? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more the ministration of justice aboundeth in glory.
📖 Gospel (Lk 10:23-37)
At that time, Jesus said to his disciples: Blessed are the eyes that see the things which you see. For I say to you that many prophets and kings have desired to see the things that you see and have not seen them; and to hear the things that you hear and have not heard them. And behold a certain lawyer stood up, tempting him and saying: Master, what must I do to possess eternal life? But he said to him: What is written in the law? How readest thou? He answering, said: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind: and thy neighbour as thyself. And he said to him: Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live. But he, willing to justify himself, said to Jesus: And who is my neighbour? And Jesus answering, said: A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among robbers, who also stripped him and, having wounded him, went away, leaving him half dead. And it chanced that a certain priest went down the same way and, seeing him, passed by. In like manner also a Levite, when he was near the place and saw him, passed by. But a certain Samaritan, being on his journey, came near him; and seeing him, was moved with compassion. And going up to him, bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine; and setting him upon his own beast, brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two pence and gave to the innkeeper and said: Take care of him; and whatsoever thou shalt spend over and above, I, at my return, will repay thee. Which of these three, in thy opinion, was neighbour to him that fell among the robbers? But he said: He that shewed mercy to him. And Jesus said to him: Go, and do thou in like manner.
🤔 Reflections
🔑 The man who went down from Jerusalem is Adam; Jerusalem is the heavenly city of peace; Jericho is the moon, which signifies our mortality. The robbers are the devil and his angels, who stripped him of immortality and, after beating him with sins, left him behind. The priest and the Levite signify the priesthood and ministry of the Old Testament, which could not save. The Samaritan is Christ. The bindings are the bond of charity. The oil is the comfort of good hope; the wine, the exhortation to work with a fervent spirit. The inn is the Church. The next day is the time after the Resurrection. The two denarii are the two precepts of love or the promise of this life and the life to come. The innkeeper is the Apostle (St. Paul) (St. Augustine, Quaestiones Evangeliorum, II, 19). If the ministration of death was glorious, how shall not the ministration of the Spirit, which abides and gives life, be much more in glory? For one is a glory of the body, the other is of the Spirit (St. John Chrysostom, Homily VI on Second Corinthians).
🗺️ While Matthew (22:35-40) and Mark (12:28-34) present the dialogue on the greatest commandment as a direct question to Jesus, who responds by uniting the two precepts, Luke inverts the dynamic: the doctor of the law, upon being questioned by Jesus about what the Law says, is the one who formulates the synthesis. More crucially, the Parable of the Good Samaritan, which serves as a practical and universal explanation of who one's "neighbor" is, is exclusive to the Gospel of Luke, arising from the lawyer's attempt to justify himself.
⛓️ The Epistle of the day, from St. Paul, serves as the theological key to the Gospel. The Pauline distinction between the "letter that kills" and the "Spirit that gives life" is perfectly dramatized in the parable. The priest and the Levite follow the letter of the law, perhaps fearing ritual impurity, but fail in the Spirit. In other passages, Paul reinforces that "the whole law is fulfilled in one word: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" (Galatians 5:14) and that "love is the fulfilling of the law" (Romans 13:10), echoing the conclusion Jesus leads the doctor of the law to reach.
⚖️ The Catechism of the Council of Trent, in explaining the Decalogue, deepens the Gospel's lesson by specifying that the precept to love one's neighbor admits no exceptions. It teaches that under the term "neighbor" we must include all men, whether they be strangers or even enemies, directly condemning any restrictive interpretation of the Law, such as the one the doctor of the law implicitly held. Charity, as detailed in the catechism, is the soul of all virtues and the bond of perfection, which makes the omission of the priest and the Levite a grave failure not just against one commandment, but against the foundation of the entire Law.
🧐 See English articles here.