The Neighbour

The Neighbour
Reflection for Monday of the 27th Week in Ordinary Time
(Gal 1:6-12; LK 10:25-37)

In answering the proud lawyer, Jesus told the story of the good Samaritan. Through that story, he gave us an ever new understanding of a neighbour. The Jew attacked by robbers could not receive help from his kinsmen and religious leader. But a Samaritan, going outside the commonly held cultural norm, had compassion on him...

Therefore, a neighbour is no more defined by proximity or ideological or cultural similitude. A neighbour is that man or woman we encounter along the pathway of life who helps us in our weakness to be strong. He obstructs his own journey that we might continue ours; and pours his wine and oil that we might be healed. “Compassion” becomes the defining word of neighbour! People might come close to us for different reasons, but he who is in touch with our lowliness to lift us up, is our neighbour.

Then the Samaritan carried the Jew to the inn. In his limited capacity, he canvases for more help from others. His compassion is not short-sighted! Hence, his charity for the Jew is open-ended. “Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.”

A neighbour of sort is precious. It comes at a great sacrifice to build neighbourliness. It is to such a neighbour are we commanded,  “love your neighbour as yourself.” In a world marked with selfishness,  greed and obsessive self-preservation, Jesus' teaching on ‘neighbour’ remains challenging. Now, how do we begin to establish such neighbourliness with everyone we meet? Who takes the initiative since it is easy to love the one who treats us like the good Samaritan?

St Pauls gives us a formula in the first reading. We should be true to the Gospel and not do anything to please people. In other words, whatever action we undertake must be aimed at realizing the gospel truth. Thus, neighbourliness is initiated indirectly when we act directly for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We see then that such a relationship is the work of grace.

Jesus, therefore, is our first and authentic Neighbour!  He is the perfect “Good Samaritan.” He came down from Heaven, alighted from the height of His glory, bent to our fallen state, to lift us up. He poured out for us the wine of His Blood on the Cross that our wounds of sin might be healed. He carried us into the inn that is the Church, and commanded Peter and his successors, “Feed my sheep.” He promised not to leave us orphans, but He continues to supply whatever grace that is needed through the Church's sacraments. And He will come back again...Jesus is my Neighbour!

He has taken the complete initiative and established us as His neighbour.  Our response is to love Him wholeheartedly, and allow our person to be assumed in His. This is how we can love others as we love ourselves—that “self” that has been redeemed by Christ Jesus. We carry around that ‘self' that has Jesus as neighbour.

Fr Jude Chinwe Nwachukwu, C.SS.R
Holy Family Catholic Church
Festac Town, Lagos.
Monday October 8, 2018.