by Fr. Tommy Lane
The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was not a safe road. It was well-known that robbers used to attack travelers to steal their belongings. In the parable in today’s Gospel (Luke 10:30-35), Jesus does not tell us why the priest and Levite passed by on the other side of the road without helping the man, but we can imagine that they thought the man lying by the roadside was a decoy or trap and if they approached to help, they would be attacked, robbed, and seriously injured. Jesus doesn’t give us any information because he wants to highlight the Good Samaritan.
The hero of the parable is the Good Samaritan. He reminds me of a real-life priest, Father Damien De Veuster, canonized as St. Damien in 2009. Father Damien was born in Belgium in 1840. After a mission given by the Redemptorists, he decided to join a religious order and joined the Fathers of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and took the name Damien. He was sent on a mission to the Hawaiian Islands in 1864 and ordained a priest in Honolulu that same year. On the island of Molokai, the Hawaiian government had set up a leper settlement in 1858. It was known as a living graveyard because there was no cure for the disease. Once people contracted the disease they were taken to the island by force and never again saw their family. There was no food brought to the island either; these poor sick lepers were supposed to fend for themselves even though as the disease progressed one lost nearly all one’s fingers and toes. In 1873 at his own request and with the permission of the bishop, Fr. Damien decided to minister in Molokai as their resident priest. Fr. Damien knew that having served on the island he would never be allowed to leave the island due to the contagious nature of the disease. From the 600 lepers there at that time, there was often more than one funeral every day. For a long time, Fr. Damien was the only one to help them. Not only did he help them spiritually but in every other way also. He dressed their ulcers, helped them to build cottages, and he built many buildings himself. He dug the lepers’ graves and made their coffins. Fr. Damien was a thorn in the side of the government by constantly begging on behalf of the lepers. Instead of funerals being a sad occasion on the island, Fr. Damien turned them into a happy occasion with processions, torchbearers, music, bands, and choirs. Fr. Damien taught the people their value in the eyes of God. When lepers came to the island, they were given a royal welcome. In 1885, twelve years after he first began to minister on the island, he noticed the first symptoms of the disease as he no longer felt hot water on his feet. He continued to help for as long as he could, but he died three years later in 1888. Pope John Paul II beatified him on June 4, 1995, saying:
He showed forth Christ’s tenderness and mercy for every human being, revealing the beauty of that person’s inner self which no illness, no deformity, no weakness can totally disfigure. (Homily of Pope John Paul II, paragraph 11)
He became a leper among the lepers; he became a leper for the lepers. He suffered and died like them, believing that he would rise again in Christ, for Christ is Lord.” (Homily of Pope John Paul II, paragraph 8)
He was canonized a saint on October 11, 2009. (Homily of Pope Benedict XVI)
I was reminded of Fr. Damien by the Good
Samaritan in today’s Gospel (Luke 10:25-37). Fr.
Damien is a powerful example of a Good Samaritan. He was more concerned about the well-being of the lepers than about
himself. He helped to raise the
lepers up from their misery just as the Good Samaritan raised up the beaten-up
man on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. It cost Fr. Damien a big price—serious illness and his own life—just as
it cost the Good Samaritan to look after the man who was robbed. After having told the parable,
Jesus asked which of the three characters in the parable proved himself a neighbor. The Good Samaritan did; he loved his
neighbor as himself.
When Jesus told a parable we are meant to compare
ourselves with the characters in the parable and see which of the characters we
are like. Do we pass by on the other side of the road instead of helping? Do we,
like the Good Samaritan, forget about ourselves and give help? None of us has yet
allowed the graces of Jesus to come to full flower in our lives so there is some selfishness in each of us
as well as some of the Good Samaritan. We
are called to grow more and more from being selfish and self-centered
to being a Good Samaritan type person, to being a Fr. Damien type person.
Copyright © Fr. Tommy Lane 2001
This homily was delivered in a parish in Ireland.
More homilies for the Fifteenth Sunday Year C
Jesus is Your Good Samaritan 2019
The Good Samaritan: thinking purified by Jesus 2010
The Good Samaritan: the Medicine of Love
Related Homilies: Today’s Gospel in the context of Luke
love of neighbor Seeing Jesus in others
If anyone wants to be first he must be servant of all
stories about helping others
stories about seeing God in others