Fr Aidan's Sermon 11th July 2004

Very often the word for Samaritan would probably be drug dealer or terrorist if it had the same shock effect as it had on the first audience.  To look at the meaning of the parable, the story, in a way the Good Samaritan is Jesus and he is the one who comes to heal, bandage our wounds, pouring oil and wine on them so that when we come to Mass we come to someone who is a complete stranger in the sense that he is completely different, we come into the presence of God.  So often we can come to Mass and we can pray and yet because our idea of God is so pathetic, so puny, so inadequate then the wonder of what we are doing we miss completely.

Jesus is the Son of God and the whole meaning of the Mass is based on us coming to meet our creator and what does he do, he binds up our wounds and most of us come to Mass every week with bruises, in need of healing with all the sorts of things that life throws at us.  Things we have no control over, wounds and injuries in family life to those we love and I offer this Mass for Barbara who I was in Lourdes with, a lovely girl and yet her whole body system is packing in, the lung transplant is being rejected, her kidneys are in a mess and she doesn’t really want to see anyone, she feels she has no control. Someone in life like Agnes Cross, Bill Howarth and Molly Potter who are in hospital, those we come to pray for at Mass, the Lord said “come to me those that are in labour and I will give you rest”, and our Lord wants to take those burdens on himself and to heal us and that’s the creator of  the world who is doing that for each of us this evening. 

The bread and the wine into whose presence he comes are a powerful symbol, sacraments of his presence and he provides for us.  He provides everything we need, he caters for our needs, he comes to feed us with himself with his own body and blood and the tremendous love and tenderness of our Lord who comes to us this evening in the Mass to do that.  The Good Samaritan says to the innkeeper “here is some money and when I come back if there is anything else you want I will help you and give to you” and Jesus says he goes away and like many of us we say when will he come back again for us, like us we say he will come back next week at Mass when we next celebrate Mass together.  But that coming back, as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our saviour Jesus Christ, as we say before Communion, that is an expression of our lives, what our lives are about, what are we doing with our lives, we are waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Waiting with joy for the coming of our Lord, that is what our life as followers of Christ is. We don’t need to do anything we just wait for his coming, alert for him coming, and how do we prepare for his coming - through the Mass.  If in our lives we constantly meet him in the Mass then we can go through the gates of death in great joy and confidence ready to welcome him when he comes in his fullness to take us in his arms into the realm of his heavenly kingdom.  Take us to eternal life, and notice how our Lord says in answer to what must I do to inherit internal life, do this he says and life is yours.  He doesn’t say eternal life, life is yours because there is no barrier between this life and the next, in the sense that this life ends and another begins, no it is a continuum.   

So as we wait in joy for the coming of our saviour Jesus Christ, the waiting process is a very powerful process.  We are alert, we are waiting in prayer in the Mass we gather all those who we love, who are in burden, we bring them to the Lord to heal, but notice too that at the end of the gospel he says go now and do likewise, so that because we are focused completely on our Lord in the Mass then that is the dynamic source of our activity and that is why so often when you come to Mass then you are confronted not just with the presence of Christ but with Christ saying go out and do something for my people, for the ones in my family that need you.   

This Sunday, this weekend, we are thinking of our children who are preparing for their first Holy Communion and for their families.  How we can support them with our prayers this weekend.  But we are also thinking of Sea Sunday and the sailors who sail on the seas and what we are realising is how intimately their lives are bound up with ours.  90% of the goods we buy in the shop, the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, the wine we drink, the fruit we eat, the meat and very often the fresh vegetables, all the things we have, the computers, the high technology, the television, the CD and DVD players, all of those come to us because a million people sail the seas and bring them to us and 60% of those are fellow Catholics and so many of them take great risks in their work and are poorly paid.  They spend months away from their families and friends in their own parishes and the apostleship of the sea is the Catholic church.  It is us reaching out to those who serve us so constantly and continually in our lives,  provide so much for us and that in every port there is a chaplaincy, people, usually priests and layworkers who welcome sailors, but they find somewhere where they can go and have Mass celebrated for them, and that stretches out Catholicism to all mariners.   

So its great work which is so often hidden from us that goes on and we are asked to pray and to help them in any way, to show our gratitude to them.  So that is the message this evening, to go out and do likewise and so Jesus comes to heal us in this great sacrament to bind up our wounds, to cater for our every need and so because of that this is the fountain of life which pours out through us to fellow members of God’s family who are in need and tonight focuses on those who journey on the seas.

Amen

©Kitabu Web Design