READING 1:
Deuteronomy 30:10-14 Psalm 69 READING 2: Colossians 1:15-20 GOSPEL: Luke10:25-37
Moses told the people that the commands of the Lord are not remote or mysterious. Jesus told a story that resounds with everyone through all history. The Good Samaritan story challenges us but it is not so remote or mysterious. A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package. What food might it contain? The mouse wondered—he was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap. Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning: There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house! The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, “Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to your but it is of no consequence to me. I can not be bothered by it.” The mouse turned to the pig and told him, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!” The pig sympathized, but said, “I am sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers.” The mouse turned to the cow and said, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!” The cow said, “Wow! Mr. Mouse, I’m sorry for you, but it’s no skin off my nose.” So the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer’s mousetrap alone. That very night a sound was heard throughout the house—like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey. The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer’s wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital, and she returned home with a fever. Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup’s main ingredient. But the farmer’s wife’s sickness continued, so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig. The farmer’s wife did not get well; she died. So many people came for her funeral; the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them. The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness. The next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn’t concern you, remember the mouse and the farm yard animals. When you think about the sectarian violence in the Middle East, the genocide in Darfur, the poverty in Haiti, abortion, domestic violence, sexual abuse or other crimes against humanity remember—when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk. The commands of God and the challenge of the Good Samaritan are not “pie in the sky,” way out there, or difficult to understand; they are really just good sense. We are all involved in this same journey called life on a rather small planet. That’s the Good News! Fr. Jeff McGowan |
