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Word To Life
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Sunday Scripture Readings: July 15, 2007
By Jean Denton Catholic News Service
Catholic News Service
July 15, Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Cycle C Readings:
1. Deuteronomy 30:10-14
Psalm 69:14, 17, 30-31, 33-34, 36-37
2. Colossians 1:15-20
3. Gospel: Luke 10:25-37
Our entire family -- mother, father and three children ages 10 to15 -- was gathered around the pay phone on a busy sidewalk in San Jose, Costa Rica. The city noise was so loud that I was shouting to the person on the other end of the line.
We had just arrived back in the city after spending our first four days in Costa Rica along the country's undeveloped Caribbean coast. We'd been pelted by nut-wielding monkeys in a rain forest; swum in unspoiled waters off quiet beaches; bicycled further down the road to a fishing village on the Panama border. We were tired, and my Spanish, miraculously, had not improved.
Here in the capital city we would begin the second half of our vacation visiting friends who lived in San Jose. Larry was employed by an international corporation. Now I was calling to get directions to his office where we would meet.
Larry was in a meeting, though, so I talked to his receptionist who spoke only a little English. The difficulty of explaining one's location in a strange city was made harder by the language barrier. I tried. She tried. Just when I thought we would all grow old together on the San Jose sidewalk, a young man drove up on a motorbike. He wanted to use the phone next.
Overhearing my tortuous conversation, he asked in Spanish if he could help.
"Si!" I said handing him the phone. He spoke briefly to the receptionist, then motioned for us to follow him.
Forsaking his own phone call, he slowly drove his bike along the edge of heavy city traffic as the five of us with luggage hurried along the sidewalk. Eight blocks later he ushered us into an office building and handed us off to Larry, who was waiting in the lobby.
"And who is my neighbor?" Jesus' disciple asks in today's Gospel.
For our family that day in San Jose, no explanation was needed. The flood of gratitude for this young man's compassion and hospitality taught us who our neighbors are -- and how we must strive to love our neighbors as well.
QUESTIONS:
When have you been treated with compassion by someone from a different culture or background? Who are people to whom you must make an effort to love as neighbor?
SCRIPTURE TO BE ILLUSTRATED:
"For this command that I enjoin on you today is not too mysterious and remote for you. ... You have only to carry it out." (Deuteronomy 30:11, 14c)
END
Copyright © 2006 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS Word To Life column may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service.
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