The Good Samaritan Revisited

I enjoyed Tom Berg’s post about the good Samaritan. In my church (the Cornell Catholic Community), Father Robert Smith (among other things) also found a challenge beyond inclusiveness. He observed that the priest and the Levite did not help the victim in order to maintain ritual cleanliness. From this perspective, this resonates with the message Jesus often presented of the perils associated with too strict following of  rules. But before we liberals triumphantly ran with that theme, Father Smith came to the heart of his homily in which he asked us to reflect on the rules or self imposed limitations we have that prevent us from helping others more often, on the attention to worldly affairs that distracts us from the presence of Christ within us and from living a life in which we see others through the eyes of Christ.