I remember
hearing a story of a priest who went to stay with his niece and her
husband. They were a young couple and were both into occult practice,
so it was going to be awkward and they were a bit nervous about him
staying. But when he came and stayed with them, he never said
anything to them about it. He was just very loving and considerate of
them both and their needs. They were so moved by this, that it
actually brought about their conversion. The power of love and seeing
good in others before anything else.
All of us
grow up with a lot of prejudice. We aren’t even aware of most of
it, but it is there. Before we see ‘people,’ we tend to see
someone who is American or Irish, black, or white, Muslim or
Christian. But these are all human categories that we put on people,
and even though they will tell us something about a person, we have a
lot of associations with each category. We tend to think that if they
are our own nationality, they’re probably ok. If they are from
somewhere else we may think we have to be careful, if they are a
priest maybe we have to be careful too. But if you take away all the
different labels, then first of all you have another human being and
that is really the only thing that matters.
This was
really brought home to me visiting two prisoners in Dublin over two
years. One was in for a very serious crime, a brutal murder,
which he deeply regretted. If you were to make a picture of him from
the papers, you would write him off as a monster, but he was one of
the most decent guys I’ve ever met. It was a freak meeting and a
tragic crime.
It says in
Genesis that ‘God saw all that He had made and indeed it was
good.’ God’s creation is basically good and every human
being is basically good. The good in them/us may have gotten buried
because of the different hurts we have encountered, or because of
what we were taught growing up, but there is good in everyone and
that goodness is the thing that we must try and tap into in each
person. We are not born with prejudice, we learn it as we grow and
our family and environment forms us into who we are.
In this
parable of the good Samaritan, Jesus was showing the people that
there could be good even in someone like a Samaritan. Ironically, we
now associate the name Samaritan with someone who does good to
others, but at the time that Jesus gave this parable it would have
been the opposite. It would have been like trying to convince us that
there could be good in an Islamic extremist, or vice versa. In Jesus’
time they would have found it impossible to believe that there could
be any good in a Samaritan. But Jesus in his wisdom used this
parable to force them to admit that there could be good even in
someone that they were totally prejudiced against.
All the
people around us, no matter what they believe, or where they come
from, are human beings before they are anything else. Ordinary people
trying to raise their families and make their way in the world just
like the rest of us. Even if they have a totally different
understanding of God to ours, or indeed don’t believe in God at
all, there is still goodness in them.
The teachings
of Jesus teach us to try and see people as people, before anything
else. Each week we keep coming back to the Lord in the mass, because
it is in him that we find strength to live with and love the people
around us. That is where our strength comes from; from Jesus himself.
Every time we receive the Eucharist we are renewing our bond with the
source of love, the one who is Love itself, because all love comes
from God, not from us.
So if you
want to tell other people about God as we understand him, the best
thing we can do is to love them. That will say more than
anything else.
I will finish
with the words of Saint Francis: ‘Let us go and preach the Gospel,
and only if necessary... use words.’
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