Gospel september 1-1 2022

Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary TimeIn Memory of our late Queen Elizabeth II.Whilst the world must go on, the events of the past few days here in the ...

"For me, as a Christian, one of the most important of these teachings is contained in the parable of the Good Samaritan, when Jesus answers the question, 'Who is my neighbour?' It is a timeless story of a victim of a mugging who was ignored by his own countrymen but helped by a foreigner - and a despised foreigner at that. All of us are at some time, the younger son or the older brother, but we are also the merciful and foolish father who knows the only way to help bring somebody back is unconditional love. If we read the longer form (Lk 15:1-32), the tenor of our reflection may take us into many known but also hidden things never told about Queen Elizabeth, for in the parable of the merciful father and the prodigal son many of us will make some very direct links with the example of mercy she has definitely shown. The shorter form of Luke's Gospel reading today (Lk 10:1-10) with its two parables of a good shepherd seeking the lost sheep and then of the woman seeking her lost coin, invites our accompaniment in this task of reaching out, then when all is done to rejoice at their recovery. This is only to be expected, the death of our longest lived Monarch, much loved and respected has created a hole in the emotional life of our country. We can be excused therefore in not being totally liturgically focused this Sunday, yet even at this time the words of our Gospel give us something constructive and positive to hold on to.