Anecdotes
1) Good Samaritan to a drowning woman: If, in recent years, you have watched the President of the United States deliver the State of the Union Address, you know that at some point in his speech he will point to the balcony and introduce an ordinary citizen as a real hero in this country. You may not know but that custom began when President Ronald Reagan introduced a man named Lenny Skutnik. To this day reporters will ask presidential aides the question: “Who are the Skutniks this year?'” Lenny Skutnik was a federal worker walking down the street minding his own business, until the day that Air Florida Flight 90 crashed into the Potomac River. The flight had just taken off from Washington bound for Florida. It had developed ice on its wings, which brought the plane down as it tried to clear Washington’s 14th Street bridge. In the next moment several passengers were thrown into the icy river. A helicopter soon came by dropping down ropes, but it could only save one person at a time. There was one lady in the water who was struggling to grab the ladder. But she was so cold and so frozen she could not lift her arms out of the water, and it looked like she was going to drown. Everyone else on that bridge was shouting encouragement to her. Lenny Skutnik broke through the police barricade, jumped into the river, risking his own life, and pulled to shore the lady who otherwise would have surely drowned. The President of the United States called him a hero. Do you know what the Lord Jesus would have called him? A good neighbor.
2) Louis Pasteur sought a cure. Garfield closed his
curtains: Many of us are afraid of dogs. It is a common fear. The eminent
scientist Louis Pasteur was far more frightened of dogs than most people. Even
a distant bark would terrify him. In his mind he could still see a mad wolf
which had raged through his boyhood village bringing agony and death to many of
his neighbors. “I have always been haunted by the cries of those victims,” he
said, time and again. Yet in 1882, past the age of 60, Pasteur gave up all his
other studies in an intense search for a cure for rabies. For three long years,
in spite of his deep-seated fears, he risked his life living with mad dogs. At
last he came through with a vaccine to cure the victims of rabies. On a July
night in 1885 he tried the first injection on a little boy whose life seemed
doomed. The boy lived. The remembered agony of his neighbors spurred Louis
Pasteur to find a cure for this dread disease. [Alex Osborn, L.H.D., Your
Creative Power (New York: N.Y.: Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1948).] Let
us move now from the sublime to the ridiculous. Some of you are fans of
America’s best-known fat cat, Garfield. In one Garfield cartoon, Garfield,
seated in a comfortable chair, sees his friend Odie at the window peering in
eagerly. Garfield says to himself, “Poor Odie. Locked outside in the cold. I
just can’t bear to see him like this. I gotta do something.” At this point
Garfield gets up from his chair and closes the curtains! Two responses to need:
Louis Pasteur sought a cure; Garfield closed his curtains.
3) Jesus the Good Samaritan; When the Communists came to
power in China, not a few Christians were arrested and tried for their faith.
One was given the opportunity to reveal why he chose Christianity instead of
the religion of his ancestors. I was in a deep pit, he said, sinking in the
mire, and helpless to deliver myself. Looking up I saw a shadow at the top, and
soon a venerable face looked over the brink and said, “My son, I am
Confucius, the father of your country. If you had obeyed my teachings, you
would never have been here.” And then he passed on with a significant
movement of his finger and a cheerless farewell, adding, “If you ever get
out of this, remember to obey my teachings.” But alas! That did not save
me. Then Buddha came along, and, looking over the edge of the pit he
cried, “My son, just count it all as nothing. Enter into rest. Fold
your arms and retire within yourself, and you will find NIRWANA, the peace to
which we all are tending.” I cried, “Father Buddha, if you will only
help me to get out, I will be glad to do so. I could follow your instructions
easily if I were where you are, but how can I rest in this awful
place?” But Buddha passed on and left me to my despair.
Then another face appeared. It was the face of a man beaming with
kindness and bearing marks of sorrow. He did not linger a moment, but leaped
down to my side, threw his arms around me, lifted me out of the mire, brought
me to the solid ground above, then he did not even bid me farewell, but took
off my filthy garments, put new robes upon me, and bade me follow him, saying,
“I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” That is why I became a Christian.
As followers of Christ, we can very easily see ourselves in that injured man
because we were once dead, badly beaten up by our sins. But we have been
spotted by – ‘The Good Samaritan par excellence and our ultimate neighbor,
beyond all comparison,’ who healed and delivered us from our sins out of his
loving mercy and compassion for us. After he healed us, he entrusted us to his
inn, which is his Church, for further spiritual caring and nourishment. And,
our Samaritan who saved us is none other than Jesus himself, who said that he
will be back someday in the future to take us with him to his Kingdom. This is
what St. Paul tells the Colossians in today’s Second Reading, which is actually
a Christological hymn: “God wanted all things to be reconciled through him and
for him, everything in heaven and on earth, when he made peace by his death on
the cross.” (Quoted by Fr. Larka)
4) ‘Bitte, beten Schwestern.‘ Since we have the
Gospel of the Good Samaritan you might think the saint would be Maximillian
Kolbe – the Franciscan priest who offered his life in place of a condemned
prisoner. He gave a powerful example of self-sacrifice and we will have the
opportunity to pray at the starvation bunker where he suffered a slow, painful
death. Instead of Maximilian Kolbe, however, I would like to focus on another
saint who died in Auschwitz – Edith Stein. Brought up in pious Jewish
household, as a teenager she abandoned her faith becoming an atheist. An
outstanding philosophy student, one evening she came across the Autobiography
of St. Theresa of Avila. She spent all night absorbed in the book. When she reached
the conclusion, she closed the book and said, “This is the truth.” By
converting to Catholicism in 1922 she rediscovered her Jewish faith and
identity. In Holy Week of 1933, after Hitler had taken control of Germany, she
told Christ that she knew “it was His Cross that was now being placed on the
Jewish people.” The Nazis took away her right to teach and she faced a choice:
to flee to America or follow her desire to become a Carmelite sister. Now you
might think becoming a cloistered nun is a form of escape. Edith Stein did not
see it that way. She wrote her prioress, “Dear Reverend Mother, please permit
me to offer myself to the Heart of Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement for true
peace, that if possible the reign of Antichrist might be broken without another
world war…” Edith Stein, now professed as Sister Teresa Benedicta a Cruce,
Sister Teresa Blessed by the Cross, knew something we don’t: the greatest good
we can do for a suffering person is to offer ourselves in prayer before Jesus.
Sister Teresa gave herself to the rhythm of daily prayer and manual labor –
tasks like sewing where she was hopeless. The other sisters made gentle fun,
but they soon realized God had blessed their convent with a gifted teacher and
mystic. You know what comes next. When the Dutch bishops protested Hitler’s
mistreatment of Jews, the Nazis retaliated by arresting some 243 Catholic Jews
in Holland. The SS officers told Sister Teresa she had five minutes to gather
her belongings. She did it quickly, then with her Carmelite sisters knelt
before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. One of the sister’s recounts, “she
turned toward us with a red face, but calmly and controlled, saying with a sad
voice, ‘Bitte, beten Schwestern.’ (‘Please pray, sisters.’)” The guards also
arrested her sister, Rosa – a lay Carmelite. At the moment of departure Teresa
was calm; Rosa was white as a sheet. They heard Sister Teresa say, “Rosa, komm,
wir gehen fur unser Volk.” Rosa, come, we are going for our people. * Sister
Teresa was the Good Samaritan in a double sense: first by offering herself in
daily praying and then by offering her life in the Auschwitz gas chamber. In
doing so she lived the double commandment of love: God first and then love of
neighbor for love of God. (Fr. Phil Bloom)
5) “I’ll be happy to honk your horn for you!” Have you
heard the story about the elderly woman who lived in a small town in East Texas
who had car trouble on the way to the supermarket one morning? Her car stalled
at a stop sign. She tried everything to get her car started again, but no luck.
Suddenly, a man in a pick-up truck came up behind her and, with obvious
agitation, he started honking his horn at her impatiently. She doubled her
efforts to get her car going. She pumped the gas, turned the ignition, but
still no luck. The man in the pick-up truck continued to honk his horn
constantly and loudly. I love what the elderly woman did. Very calmly she got
out of her car, walked back to the pick-up and motioned for the man to lower
his window and then politely she said: “I’ll make a deal with you. If you will
start my car for me, I’ll be happy to honk your horn for you!” Now, that is
what you call “Rising to the occasion!” — and that is precisely what Jesus does
here in Luke 10. The lawyer was “testing” Jesus, honking his horn loudly. He
was trying to trap Jesus and trip Him up with a loaded question, but Jesus (as
He so often did), rose to the occasion and passed the test with flying colors.
In so doing, He reminded the people back then (and us today), of what the main
thing is in the Christian Faith.
6) Bishop Sheen’s conversion to a Good Samaritan to lepers: Archbishop
Fulton J. Sheen, in his autobiography Treasure in Clay, recounts
a visit he made to a leper colony in Buluba, Africa. He intended to give a
silver crucifix to each of the 500 lepers residing in Buluba. The first person
who came forward, however, was a man so disfigured by the ravages of leprosy
that Sheen was repulsed by the sight. The man’s left arm was eaten off at the
elbow by the disease; so he extended his right hand. This hand, too, was
unspeakably corrupted by this awful disease. Unable to bear the leper’s
presence, Sheen held the crucifix above the man’s palm and dropped it, where it
was immediately swallowed up in the decaying flesh. Instantly, Sheen was aware
of his unrighteous act. He had taken the crucifix “God’s sign of identification
with humanity” and refused to associate himself with one of God’s children.
Overcome with remorse, Sheen dug his fingers into the man’s leprosy and removed
the crucifix. This time, he gently placed the crucifix in the man’s hand. Sheen
respectfully handed a crucifix to each of the remaining 499 lepers and, in the
exchange, learned to love them with the love of the Good Samaritan.
7) “When he wakes up, he’ll feel sick, lonely and ashamed.” A well-known
leader of the community was found dead drunk, and in public. Allan Emery tells
in his book, Turtle on a Fencepost, how his wealthy father sent a
chauffeured limousine to pick the man up and bring him to their elegant house.
Allan noticed with concern that his mother had prepared the big guest room.
There were fresh flowers on the dresser. And, to Allan’s horror, he saw that
his mother had made up the handsome four-poster bed with real linen hemstitched
sheets and monogrammed linen pillowcases. Allan protested to his mother that
she knew nothing about drunks, “that they got sick and the man would throw up
all over the bed, sheets, and antique bedspread.” Looking at her perturbed son,
his mother said seriously, “When he wakes up, he’ll feel sick, lonely and
ashamed. It is important for him to see immediately that he is our honored
guest and that we gave him our best.” She knew this man in his disgrace would
need all the encouragement he could get. [Ruth Bell Graham, Legacy of a
Pack Rat (Nashville, Tennessee: Oliver-Nelson Books, 1989).] He was a
leader in his community, but he was a very needy person. And so are we all.
8) A Good Samaritan on highways: Thirty years
ago, Tom Weller’s car broke down as he was driving through Southern California.
A stranger stopped to help Weller and would accept no payment in return for his
kindness. Instead, the stranger asked Weller to return the favor by stopping to
help some other stranger somewhere. Tom Weller took those words to heart. For
the last thirty years, he has helped thousands of stranded people along
Southern California’s highways. He never asks for payment; instead, Tom Weller
leaves behind a small business card asking each person to help someone else in
need. It has become his mission in life to pass on the kindness that was once
done for him. [Charles Kuralt with Peter Freundlich. American Moments.
9) Good Samaritan to robbery victim: In the
book Profiles in Character, Congresswoman Barbara Cubin from
Wyoming tells how her character was shaped by the moral influence of her
parents. Barbara’s parents divorced when she was young. A few years later,
Barbara’s mother remarried. Her new stepfather worked hard to support the
family. One particular story demonstrates his great character. Barbara’s birth
father, on a visit to Wyoming, was beaten and robbed. At the hospital, a
paramedic found his former wife’s phone number on Barbara’s birth father and
called the house. Barbara’s stepfather went immediately to the hospital and
paid his wife’s ex-husband’s hospital bill. Then he took him to a local motel.
The stepfather paid the proprietor of the motel for the father’s room and meals
until he had recovered enough to go home. [Representative Barbara Cubin. Profiles
in Character.
10) The philosophy of the priest and Levite: In the spring
of 1998, there was a story in the news about a fifteen-year-old boy who bled to
death just 35 feet outside the emergency room doors of a Chicago hospital. It
seems that the teenager was an innocent bystander who was hit by a bullet when
gang members started shooting at each other. After he was shot, friends of his
managed to carry him to just outside the hospital, where they left him. But
apparently the bleeding youth was left there unattended for 25 minutes because
it was against hospital policy for doctors or nurses to go outside the building
to treat anyone. Instead, they had to wait for an ambulance to arrive to
transport him inside. By the time they finally got him into the hospital, the
boy was dead. They were more interested in not getting into trouble violating
hospital policy than they were in saving a young man’s life! “What is mine is
mine” was the philosophy of the priest and the Levite.
11) Lady Good Samaritan: Dan Rather recalls an eventful
elevator ride in a large Florida hotel: After having flown in late during the
night, I am now up early to go downstairs and make a speech before several
thousand people. I am not in a good mood. In the elevator I feel all eyes on
me. “Didn’t any of these people’s mothers teach them that it’s rude to stare?”
I am thinking. Soon the elevator reaches the lobby. As it empties, a woman
gently takes hold of my sleeve. “Mr. Rather,” she says quietly, “I don’t mean
to intrude.” “Then why are you?” I say to myself. She looks around, making sure
no one else is listening. “I don’t want this to be embarrassing. But your fly
is unzipped and a piece of your shirttail is sticking out through it,” she
says. Then she smiles and strides away.
12) “He did not answer the cry for help.” There is a
respectable lawyer in Albert Camus’ novel, The Fall. He
is walking in the streets of Amsterdam one night and hears a cry. A woman has
fallen into the canal and is crying for help. Then the thoughts come rushing
through his mind. Of course, he must help, but…a respected lawyer getting
involved in this way? What would the implications be? ….what about the personal
danger? After all, who knows what has been going on? By the time he has thought
it through, it is too late. She has drowned. He moves on, making all kinds of
excuses to justify his failure to act. Camus writes, “He did not answer the cry
for help. That is the man he was.” [David Shelly, “A Master of Saves,” Presbyterian
Survey (July/August 1986).] We would have done better, we tell
ourselves, and yet all around us are people in need. Not just physical needs —
emotional needs can be more devastating than physical needs. The most serious
disease in America today, according to many experts, is loneliness. Many of us
could hear cries for help right in our own neighborhood, if we would listen —
or in our own families. Why do we not listen? “Do this and live,” said Jesus.
13) “We just did not want to get involved.” Back in 1964,
a young woman in her late 20s was attacked on her way home by a man who stabbed
her repeatedly and took over a half an hour to murder her. She screamed
repeatedly for help and at least 38 people looked down from their apartment
windows and watched the crime take place. Not one even bothered to telephone
the police. When they were asked later why they had done nothing, they gave the
famous response, “We just did not want to get involved.” One of the greatest
problems we have in our Church, and every Church, is we have Churches that are
full of priests and Levites. A Gallup survey discovered that only 10% of
American Church members are active in any kind of personal ministry, and 50% of
all Church members have no interest in serving in any ministry. In other words,
50% of the Church is saying loudly and clearly, “We just don’t want to get
involved”
14) Good Samaritan Law: Some of you remember the
Seinfeld show. In its final episode, which aired at the end of the 1998 TV
season, the main characters (Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer), receive a
one-year sentence for failing to help someone who was being robbed. What happens
is this: Their plane encounters problems, and they are stuck in Lakeland,
Massachusetts. Killing time wandering around on the sidewalks in this quaint
New England town, they become innocent bystanders and witnesses of a
carjacking. Being New Yorkers and the kind of people, they are, they make fun
of the guy who is being robbed. Kramer, who has a camcorder in his hands, films
the incident as a curiosity. They never lift a hand, never shout out; they are
10 yards away, and couldn’t care less. They just stand there and casually
watch! The robber speeds off with the car and the police arrive late on the
scene. With the excitement over, and the poor victim standing dazed in the
street, Jerry turns to his friends and suggest they go get something to eat. As
they walk off the officer stops them and says, “All right, hold it right
there.” Jerry: “What?” Officer: “You’re under arrest.” Jerry: “Under arrest,
What for?” Officer: “Article 223 dash 7 of the Lakeland county penal code.”
Elaine: “What, we didn’t do anything.” Officer: “That’s exactly right. The law
requires you to help or assist anyone in danger as long at its reasonable to do
so.” George: “I never heard of that.” Officer: “It’s new, it’s called the Good
Samaritan Law, Let’s go.” The series ends with them serving their time.
15) “The Member of This Church I Would Most Like to See in Hell.”: Several years
ago, a pastor announced (via the sign board in front of his Church) that, come
Sunday, he was going to preach on “The Member of This Church I Would Most Like
to See in Hell.” What excitement he caused! What a crowd he drew! The church
was filled with people who hadn’t been there in ages…. kids who usually walked
home after Sunday school….the C and E crowd…. and a bunch of curious
Presbyterians who wandered over from next door. Everybody was there. Well, when
he finally called a name….he really did call a name…. it was the name of
everybody’s favorite Sunday school teacher. Then he went on to say that the
reason he most wanted to see her in Hell was because he was sure that, in two
or three weeks, given her saintly nature, Hell would be converted and emptied.
He didn’t say whether her primary means of accomplishing this would be passing
out tracts or by handing out cups of cold water. But he left no doubt that her
love of God and neighbor would not allow her to rest comfortably in her place
while the rest of us fared miserably in ours.
16) “I Didn’t Speak Up.” Do you remember that poignant
and wonderful piece written by Martin Niemoeller? Niemoeller was a German
Lutheran pastor who was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to a concentration
camp in Dachau in 1938. Amazingly, he survived the prison camp experience and
was set free by the Allied Troops in 1945. Out of that horrible experience,
Niemoeller wrote these haunting words: “I Didn’t Speak Up….In Germany, the
Nazis… came… for the Jews and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then
they came for the trade unionists and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a
trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn’t speak up because
I was a Protestant. Then they came for me… and by that time there was no one left
to speak for me.” (Quoted in Dear Abby, Houston Post, January
31, 1990). The point is clear….We can’t bail out or run away. We can’t detach
ourselves and stand to the side. We can’t ignore the troubles of the world. We
can’t just wait around expecting someone else to roll up his sleeves and
correct the situation for us. If we are to live in the Spirit of Christ, we
have to face the problems and deal with them redemptively.
17) Lesson from Ann Jullian: Actress Ann
Jullian’s struggle with cancer and her resulting double mastectomy have been
much publicized. She allowed her story to be told to encourage and support
others who are enduring a similar struggle. Ann’s husband, Andy, extends the
same sympathy to the public. His sentiment is best expressed in a comment he
made after viewing President Reagan on television. The newscast showed the
former President lugging a potted plant to his wife Nancy, a patient at
Bethesda Naval Hospital, who had also had a mastectomy. Observing Ronald
Reagan’s concern for his beloved spouse, Andy concurred, “I felt sorry for him.
He is simply a guy, just like you and me. He may be the President of the United
States, but at that moment he was a husband worried about his wife.” Suffering
is equitable, for no one is spared. Understanding the pain of our own
afflictions makes us more willing to help our hurting neighbor. That help may
come as a kind word, a visit, or a comforting embrace. Mother Teresa once put
it like this, “The biggest disease today is not leprosy or cancer. It’s the
feeling of being uncared for or unwanted, of being deserted and alone. The
greatest evil is the lack of love and charity, and an indifference toward one’s
neighbor who may be the victim of poverty or disease or exploited and at the
end of his life, left at a roadside.”
18) “Here comes my friend Douglass.” Frederick
Douglass approached the front door of the White House, seeking admission into
Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Ball. Just as Douglass was about to knock on
the door, two policemen seized him, barring the black man’s entrance. Douglass,
a large, powerful man, brushed the officers aside and stepped into the foyer.
Once inside, two more officers grabbed the uninvited guest, all the while
uttering racial slurs. As Douglass was being dragged from the hall, he cried to
a nearby patron, “Just say to Mr. Lincoln that Fred Douglass is at the door!”
Confusion ensued. Then suddenly the officers received orders to usher Douglass
into the East Room. In that beautiful room, the great abolitionist stood in the
presence of the esteemed President. The place quieted as Lincoln approached his
newly arrived guest, hand outstretched in greeting, and speaking in a voice
loud enough so none could mistake his intent, the President announced, “Here
comes my friend Douglass.” The President had called Frederick Douglass friend.
Who dared demean Douglass if he was a friend of the President? Jesus Christ,
the Lord of the universe, has called us his brothers and his sisters. God has
called us His own children, but not only us — also the person who lies stripped
and beaten by the side of the road. He or she is our friend, our neighbor.
19) The good neighbor: An American family was driving
cross-country in Alaska in their motor-home when the axle of their vehicle
broke and could not be easily fixed. They were in the middle of nowhere. So the
father left his family in the motor-home and began to walk in search of help.
To his good luck, he came upon an isolated farmhouse. He knocked and a very
friendly farmer responded. When he learned of the man’s distress, the farmer
just patted him on the shoulder and said he could help. Without wasting a
minute, he got into his tractor, drove out and towed the motorhome to his yard.
And then, in a very short while, he used his welder and fixed the problem. The
American family was extremely relieved and grateful. Taking out his wallet, the
father of the family offered to pay, but the farmer would have none of it. “It
was my pleasure.” was all he said. “As you can see, I live in isolation and
often do not see anybody for weeks and even months. You have given me the
pleasure of your company for the last two hours. That is more than adequate
compensation.” The American family was greatly impressed to encounter such
noble and selfless generosity. It certainly enhanced their belief in the
essential goodness of human beings.
20) “Welcome my son!” According to an ancient legend, a king
who had no son to succeed him posted a notice inviting young men to come along
and apply for adoption into his family. The two qualifications were love of God
and love of neighbor. A poor peasant boy was tempted to apply but felt unable
to do so because of the rags he wore. He worked hard, earned some money, bought
some new clothes, and headed off to try his luck at being adopted into the
king’s family. He was half-way there, however, when he came across a poor
beggar on the road, who was shivering with the cold. The young lad felt sorry
for him, and he exchanged clothes with him. There was hardly much point in
going any further towards the king’s palace at this stage, now that he was back
in rags again. However, the young man felt that, having come this far, he might
as well finish the journey. He arrived at the palace, and, despite the
jeers and sneers of the courtiers, he was finally admitted into the presence of
the king. Imagine his amazement to see that the king was the old beggar-man he
had met on the road, and he was actually wearing the good clothes the young man
had given him! The king got down from his throne, embraced the young man, and
said “Welcome, my son!”
21) Good Samaritans in San Francisco airport: Asiana Flight
214 crash landed at San Francisco airport on July 6, 2013 and caught fire. Half
of the 12-person cabin crew suffered injuries. But 305 out of 307
passengers were saved by the prompt action of Good Samaritans in the persons of
the remaining six crew members and the passengers. Two teenagers died on the
spot, a third in the hospital, and 70 passengers suffered injuries. Six
uninjured crew members oversaw the emergency evacuation of nearly 300
passengers — using knives to slash seatbelts, calling pilots who slung axes to
free two colleagues trapped by malfunctioning slides, fighting flames and
bringing out frightened children. Lee Yoon-Hye (40) center cabin manager of
Asiana Flight 214 had 20 years of experience with Asiana. She and another
flight attendant, Ji Youn Kim, lugged injured passengers on their backs off the
burning hulk of the Boeing 777. Lee was the last person to leave the burning
plane. Passenger Eugene Anthony Rah said: “This tiny woman was carrying people
piggyback, running everywhere, with tears running down her face. She was
crying, but she was still so calm and helping people.” “I was only thinking
about rescuing the next passenger,” Lee said later. She told the news
agency that one of her colleagues carried a frightened elementary school-aged
boy on her back off the plane and down the emergency exit slide. Veteran San
Francisco police Officer Jim Cunningham charged up the escape chute without a
respirator to search for survivors. Benjamin Levy the Silicon Valley venture
capitalist, who sat in seat 30K, told the Times that he helped
open one of the emergency-exits and helped as many as three-dozen fellow
passengers off the plane. It was he who helped Rha, her daughter and dozens of
others escape from the back of the plane.
22) James Gilhooley (Homilies.net) Michael
Parenti, in Democracy For the Few, advises us of the other
half of the picture. “Approximately 1.6 percent of the (US) population own 80
percent of all capital stock, 100 percent of all state and municipal bonds, and
88% percent of all corporate bonds.” At the same time in the United States,
millions are being deprived as I speak. One out of four of our children live in
poverty. Can you imagine the rage we would feel if 25% of us were
unemployed? Tonight 100,000 homeless kids will have to find a place to
sleep. Thirty million of our fellow citizens are illiterate. About thirty-five
million have no health insurance. Another sixty million are underinsured. Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. advised wisely that our society does need
restructuring. And each of us should be pushing the burden up the hill and make
sure it gets down the other side. Again, our Bishop speaks, “Direct assistance
is good. Tackling the causes is better.”
23) The Best Treatment for Loneliness: Dr. Karl
Menninger, the famous American psychiatrist, once gave a lecture on mental
health and was answering questions from the audience. One man asked, “What
would you advise a person to do if that person felt a nervous breakdown coming
on?” Everyone there expected him to answer, “Consult a psychiatrist.” To their
astonishment he replied: “Leave your house, go across the railroad tracks, find
someone who is in need, and do something to help that person.”
24) Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood: Aware that
the person of the neighbor and the experience of the neighborhood are to be
valued and preserved, Fred Rogers and Public Television created a program for
children; for 30 years, Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood has offered to a vast young
audience an opportunity for being a neighbor and for belonging to a
neighborhood where people are cherished and valued, regardless of, and even
because of their differences and disabilities. Through his characters, both
real and fictional, Rogers continues to teach life lessons about honesty,
respect, growing up, individuality, etc. With each program, he renews the
invitation, “Won’t you please be my neighbor?” In today’s gospel, Jesus also
teaches a life lesson through the characters of the Good Samaritan; once again
he renews the invitation to discipleship and challenges believers to consider
the question, “Who is my neighbor?” Many, today, complain that the neighborhood
is an endangered species and that neighborliness is a dying art. Some blame the
very technology that has made the world a global village for further distancing
people from one another. After all, how can faceless and nameless “cyberneighbors”
surfing the chat rooms of the internet possibly compare with a face to face
conversation on the front stoop or porch. Of course, cyberspace keeps the
interaction unencumbered, detached, sterile and convenient, but are these the
qualities of a neighbor?
25) “I am paying for the next six cars.” An editorial
published in a December 1991 issue of Glamour magazine (and
quoted by Mark Link in Action 2000, Tabor Pub., Allen, TX: 1993)
related the story of a woman driving a red car on a toll road. Pulling up to
the tollbooth, she handed the attendant seven tickets. “I am paying for the
next six cars,” she said. As each of the cars stopped, the driver was told that
the lady in the red car had already paid and “Have a nice day!” The woman in
the red car attributed her generosity to something she had read by Anne
Herbert: “Practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty.”
Herbert suggested that “random kindness” is capable of creating a tidal wave
just as “random violence” can. In affirmation of Herbert’s statement, the
editor of Glamour extended this challenge: “Like all
revolutions, guerilla goodness begins slowly, with a single act. Let it be
yours.” In today’s gospel, Jesus is extending a similar challenge to believers,
with one notable exception. The followers of Jesus are not called to random acts
of kindness but purposeful loving service.
26) He treated him with compassion: Christ’s
parable of the compassionate “foreigner” from Samaria is so famous that the
term “Good Samaritan” has become proverbial. Joseph Lo Pa-hong of Shanghai was
a real-life good Samaritan in the decades before World War II. Unlike the
typical Chinese, Joseph was a Catholic, one of a family that had embraced the
faith 300 years ago. Unlike the typical Chinese Catholic, he was also a man of
means, highly respected in the commercial world of China, and even of Europe,
where he had been decorated by the Belgian, French and Italian governments. But
however successful he was in business affairs, Lo Pa-hong’s principal concern
in life was the spread of the gospel and its ideals of charity.
One day in 1912 when this apostolic man was riding in his rickshaw
through the city streets, a beggar approached him for alms. Lo saw the man was
deathly sick, so he took him into his carriage to transport him to a hospital.
But the hospital would not accept him, and the coolie pulling the rickshaw
refused to transport him further because it would “harm his business”. So
Joseph eventually hoisted the pauper on his own shoulders and brought him to
his own home where he nursed him as well as he could. Other poor people heard
of this and asked him to take them in, too. Lo Pa-hong soon opened a special
house for the poor. It was the beginning of a series of charitable institutions
– 16 in all – that he called St. Joseph’s Hospice. At peak the Hospice had a
population of 2000 sick (including ill prison inmates), orphans, abandoned
children, etc. Under Joseph’s daily supervision, the Hospice performed all the
spiritual and corporal works of mercy. The founder supported it by begging,
mostly from his non-Christian business friends.
War, that enemy of Charity, struck China in the 1930’s. The Japanese invaders besieged Shanghai. Lo Pa-hong lost much of his wealth in the siege. During the violence that followed, he lost his very life. On July 30, 1937 he set out from the Hospice to get some rice for his poor. Two assassins in the streets, mistaking his purpose, fired at him point-blank. The victim was taken to the hospital, received the last rites and died a few hours later. Given the opportunity before he died, this saintly Chinese Samaritan would doubtless have forgiven his murderers with all his heart. After all, they had made him a martyr to charity.
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