Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we all listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures, we are all reminded of the important responsibilities and obligations that each and every one of us have as Christians, as those whom the Lord had called and chosen so that we may recognise what it is that the Lord has called us all to do in our own respective lives. We should remember that we cannot be ignorant or neglect our responsibilities and the various callings and vocations that the Lord had called us to, in whatever way it is that He wants us to follow Him, just as He has shown us through our Scripture passages today with the calling of the prophet Jonah and also through the Parable of the Good Samaritan that He Himself had told His disciples.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of the prophet Jonah, we heard of the moment when the Lord called Jonah to be His servant and messenger to the people of the great city of Nineveh, the capital of the great Assyrian Empire. The prophet Jonah was reluctant to follow this mission and instead of obeying God and doing what He had wanted him to do, he chose to flee from the Lord, thinking the he would be able to flee from the Lord’s calling, taking a ship to distant lands away from the mission that he had been called to do. And we heard how the Lord sent a great storm to the ship as it was on its way, and Jonah had to admit to the ship crews how he had been fleeing from the Lord and refusing to do as He had commanded it.

That was how Jonah was famously then thrown off from the ship on his own request, and the Lord sent a great beast of the sea, believed to be a whale, to take care of Jonah as he was in the belly of the beast for three days until the beast brought him to the shore again. Jonah repented his previous disobedience and followed the Lord’s guidance, and he went to the city of Nineveh to do what God had sent him to do there, to proclaim God’s words and judgment to that city which had been filled with much wickedness and evils. Through this story of the prophet Jonah, we are all reminded that each and every one of us has specific callings and missions which the Lord has entrusted to us, and we should listen to Him and follow Him in everything that He has called us to do in our respective lives.

Then, from our Gospel passage today, taken from the Gospel according to St. Luke the Evangelist, we heard of the famous parable of the Good Samaritan in which the Lord highlighted to His disciples the story of the Good Samaritan who have helped a severely injured Jew that was beset and struck by bandits during his journey on the way to Jericho. In that occasion, we heard how three people passed by the place where the injured person was, firstly a priest, then a Levite, and last of all, a Samaritan. And if we understand the context and the significance of these people who passed by and who was the one that actually stopped by and helped the injured man, then we will realise why it truly matters for us to follow the example of the Good Samaritan in the parable today.

First of all, the Jews and the Samaritans are two different groups of people that were actually descended from a rather common ancestry, as both of them descended from the ancient Israelites, the original chosen people of God who dwelled in the Promised Land of Canaan. However, after the reign of King Solomon of Israel and the division of Israel into two opposing kingdoms of Israel and Judah, this led to the bitter division among the two groups of people, which further crystallised after the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel centred in Samaria, from where the term Samaritan came from. At that time, the Assyrians that conquered the northern kingdom brought in people from other lands to dwell in that land, and over the centuries, these people intermingled with some of the remnants of the Israelites to become the Samaritans.

Meanwhile the Jews descended from the people of both Judah and Israel that had been exiled to Babylon, Assyria and elsewhere, and when they returned back to their ancestral homeland, they dwelled mostly in Judea and Galilee surrounding Samaria, where the Samaritans lived in. Over the centuries, their accumulated differences and misunderstandings grew, and the Jews and the Samaritans grew to resent each other, and considered the other party to be flawed, mistaken and wicked in their way of living their lives and faith. Each group claimed to be the righteous bearers of the true belief in God, and each even had their versions of the Torah, which respectively claimed that their version was the true one while the other one was faulty and flawed.

Ironically however, from the perspective of the Jews, to whom most of the Lord’s followers and disciples belonged to, among the three people, the priest, the Levite and the Samaritan, it was only the Samaritan who bothered to stop and help the injured Jew. The priest and the Levite for the context were the ones who were highly respected among the Jewish people, and they should have been the ones to help the injured Jew, their own fellow countryman, and yet, they did not even stop and help at all. It was a Samaritan, the so-called mortal and bitter enemy of the Jewish people that showed love and concern, and not only that, but he even went the extra mile to help the man, and committed himself to his well-being afterwards too. This is therefore a reminder from the Lord to each and every one of us, His disciples and followers, as Christians, to show true love and genuine care to everyone, regardless their origins and backgrounds.

Today, the Church also celebrates the Feast of St. Bruno, a courageous priest and servant of God who is also known as St. Bruno of Cologne. St. Bruno was the renowned founder of the Carthusians Order, also known as the Order of Carthusians that gathered both monks and nuns who devoted themselves to the rule set by their founder. St. Bruno himself was born in Cologne in today’s Germany in the early eleventh century, and then becoming a priest and involved in education and schools in the region of Reims in today’s France, as a renowned teacher, philosopher and theologian. Some of his students would go on to become bishops and leaders of the Church, and one of them even became Pope, namely Pope Urban II.

He was also made as the Chancellor of the Diocese of Reims and managed the diocese, its goods and resources well, uprooting the corruption in the local Church, and was renowned for his confrontation against the new Bishop of Reims who was a worldly and corrupt man, an aristocrat with no clear love and concern for the Church and its people. St. Bruno persevered in his efforts and struggles with the bishop and eventually prevailed despite the challenges and difficulties that he had to face in doing so for a number of years. When he himself was about to be made a bishop for his accomplishments, he chose to withdraw himself from such worldly ambitions, and that was how he eventually built up the foundation for the Carthusian Order. Through his many efforts, inspirations and piety, he inspired many people to live their lives worthily and to commit themselves ever more wholeheartedly to the Lord.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore reflect on the words of the Scriptures, the examples of the prophet Jonah and the message of the Parable of the Good Samaritan, as well as the life and ministry of St. Bruno of Cologne. Let us all realise that each and every one of us are called to good actions and dedications, in whatever way we can, so that in our own daily lives, in our own respectives areas of responsibility, in whichever parts of our lives, we may continue to be good role models and examples to everyone around us. Let our faith and actions shine forth with the grace of God, and may these be the inspiration that strengthen many more people in their faith, especially those whose lives have been touched by us. May God bless us always in all of our endeavours, and may He bless us in our every good efforts and works, now and always. Amen.