Today we find ourselves confronted with a gigantic task of undoing or rather redoing what has already been done. We must fight tooth and nail every day, against the irresponsibility and immaturity of some people, it is indeed frightening and our struggle must be directed against this terrifying injustice to human life, human family. This fight against this evil calls us to strive to make society, in every way, a place where truly human life can be lived.
When we pass by a suffering human being or we disrespect human dignity in any form we are not in the space of a compassionate God or a neighbour Jesus spoke of in the parable of the Good Samaritan, What betrayal of human trust! Human vulnerability! We are our brothers and sisters keepers, not destroyers.
We are worthy of our name as human beings when we have opened our hearts to all, and our goodness is to be measured by our capacity for communion with mercy and concern for others
Fighting against seeing the other as a low cast and as not worthy of even entering a Temple and church, the challenge is loud and clear; people are waking up to the pain and suffering of these victims and to the reality of human cruelty. Cruelty is what happens when we humans have no compassion at all.
There are two types of men/women those who take care of pain and those who pass by. All of us have in our hands the responsibility and also the possibility of making the world much better and safer and we face the choice to be good Samaritans or to be indifferent travellers, passing by (Pope Francis) so choose to be the Good Samaritan cross on to the other side of the road of life and be a brother and a sister to the other ‘’Compassion’’ is not a spectator sport it means we get our hands dirty! ….But, even if this were all that Jesus was calling us to do, to be kind to a stranger, how many of us would have missed the mark?
I end with this true story I feel proud to proclaim. The heroines of this story are the students of Std XII of St Joseph’s High School in Chennai. On their cycles they were peddling home hungry and tired after the school and extra classes when they saw a fragile poor old woman fallen on the busy road with the men gaping at her. Vishnu along with her friends jumped off their cycles lifted her up and placed her on the footpath. These heroines could have easily ‘passed by the other side’! In the eyes of God everything about that evening was special “a neighbour was born” God’s mercy and compassion was in the air that evening.
All of us have in our hands, the responsibility and also the possibility of making the world much better and safer for our children our women and men, and we face the choice to be Good Samaritans or to be Indifferent Travellers.
