Monday, July 15, 2013

Look Again @ The Good Samaritan Parable

What parable does Jesus share right after reiterating the greatest commandment? (Luke 10:27) The parable of The Good Samaritan. 
The symbolism in this particular parable can be absolutely amazing. Have you ever thought about it like this?

• The victim is Adam who left Jerusalem, which was Eden and fell upon hard times through sin. 
• The Priest represents all the sacrifices offered again and again to no avail. 
•  The Levite represents the hypocritical observance of the Law, which also provided no relief. 
• The Samaritan was actually Jesus who is the perfect rescuer. 
• The inn is the Church and the coins were the Sacraments and other Graces Christ has bestowed on us through the Church. 
 It is the message that Christ is the way to our salvation and the Church is our place of refuge on our journey to recovery, which is to be reunited with our Supreme benefactor, Jesus Christ.
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Saint Ambrose (c.340-397), Bishop of Milan and Doctor of the Church Commentary on Saint Luke's gospel, 7,73 ; SC 52

The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37)

"A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho"... 
Jericho is the symbol of this world where, after he had been cast out of Paradise, that is to say the heavenly Jerusalem, Adam went down... 
It was his change of behavior, not of place, that made his exile. And what a change! This man Adam, who enjoyed undisturbed happiness, had no sooner lowered himself to this world's sins than he encountered some brigands... 
Now who are these brigands if not the angels of night and darkness who, on occasion, disguise themselves as angels of light (2Cor 11,15) but are unable to remain thus? They start by stripping us of the garments of spiritual grace we have received: this is how they usually behave so as to cause us harm... 
Take great care, then, not to let yourself be stripped, like Adam, deprived of the protection of God's commandments and lacking the garment of faith. This is why he received the mortal wound to which the whole human race would have succumbed if the Samaritan had not come down to cure his frightful wound.

This is not just any Samaritan: this one did not disdain the man whom the priest and the Levite disdained... 
This Samaritan came down. “Who has come down from heaven except the one who has gone up to heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven?” (cf Jn 3,13). Seeing that man half dead whom no one before him had been able to heal... he came up beside him. That is to say, by consenting to suffer with us he became our fellow and by showing us mercy he became our neighbor.
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Another great resource . . . A homily by Msgr. Charles Pope:
http://blog.adw.org/2013/07/love-lightens-every-load/

2 comments:

Unknown said...

who are the artist for these paintings?

Soutenus said...

Caitlin, here are the links to the artwork. I was unabe to find thenames of the artists.

http://mybackpages.typepad.com/mybackpages/2010/07/the-good-samaritan.html

AND

http://onevoice.org.nz/2013/07/09/songs-for-sunday-the-good-samaritan/

There were no artist names given. You might want to ask these bloggers. :-)

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