10 minutes wih Jesus are group of Catholic priests who share friendship with Jesus, plus keenness to help young people of all ages to learn the art of loving Jesus and speaking to Him. You can find them in WhatsApp, Spotify, Ivoox, Telegram, Goggle Podcasts and Apple Podcast. Every saturday, we are going to share one meditation by 10 minutes with Jesus. Enjoy it.
My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me, I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins, and the grace to make this time of Prayer fruitful; my Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father and Lord, my guardian angel intercede for me.
Lord, tell us a story
Today in our prayer, Lord, we ask you to tell us a story. Lord, you are the greatest and certainly the most influential storyteller of all times. Our Lord’s parables have had a greater impact on the world; perhaps than all other stories, all other tales or fables told by anyone ever, and today we can reflect on this great parable: the parable of the Good Samaritan. One of our Lord’s most famous parables.
One that’s helped so many people examine their conscience and change their lives, and to be more generous in taking care of others. Because he wished to justify himself he said to Jesus: And who is my neighbor? This is right after Jesus said that the greatest commandment in the law is to love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, all your being and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.
And so the scholar of the law, who asked our Lord what the greatest commandment was, in order to justify himself perhaps feeling a little bit interiorly guilty at his own of his own lack of charity asks our Lord: And who is my neighbor? And Jesus responds precisely with a story, the story of the Good Samaritan.
From Jerusalem to Jericho
Jesus replied: A man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. They stripped him and beat him, and went off leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down that road but when he saw him he passed by on the opposite side. Likewise, a Levite came to the place and when he saw him he passed by on the opposite side.
Lord Jesus, I can tell you that I’m sorry for the many times in my life when I have acted like this priest and like this Levite. These men, who when they see the needs of the man who’s lying there in pain and suffering, having been robbed, pass by on the opposite side. Instead of approaching the man in his need, they do the opposite; they distance themselves from him. This is so easy to do.
Helping others takes time, it takes some work, and it takes some effort. Perhaps you have to overcome our repugnance which may be occasioned by the condition of the person who needs our help. I’m sure this man there half dead was not a pretty sight so we have to overcome perhaps our natural instinct to remove ourselves from an uncomfortable situation and go the other direction.
The Samaritan
And this is what the Samaritan did: A Samaritan traveler, who came upon him, was moved with compassion at the sight. He approached the victim. Unlike the others who crossed the road and crossed past him on the opposite side of the road, the Samaritan moved by compassion approaches the victim, goes towards the suffering, overcomes any repugnance, and overcomes any fear of commitment or time that it may take him to help this person.
He approached the victim, poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them; then he lifted him up on his own animal, took him to an inn and cared for him. The next day, he took out two silver coins and gave them to the income innkeeper with the instruction: “Take care of him. If you spend more than what I have given you, I shall repay you on my way back”. Which of these three in your opinion was neighbor to the rapper’s victim? He answered: the one who treated him with mercy. Jesus said: Go and do likewise.
Action
The Good Samaritan we notice is not just moved with pity. He doesn’t just feel bad. He takes action, and he realizes I should do something and I’m going to do something. And he doesn’t just decide to do something. We have to also notice that he’s humanly capable of helping. He has something to offer. He doesn’t just walk over, and look at the guy with the look of mercy and kind of accompany him in his pain.
He’s a man of heart but he’s also a man of action, and so our Lord lists a whole series of actions that go into this work of mercy. There’s a whole series of virtues behind this act of charity. First of all, he knows how to address his wounds. He has this practical medical knowledge of how to help him, and then he has a great prudence; right he comes up with a plan.
Prudence is the virtue of knowing how to put good intentions into action; right it’s one thing to know that we want to do something, it’s another thing to know what steps we’re going to take to get that thing done; to realize the goal that we have in mind.
A plan
So he comes up with a plan. This man will need a place to rest and recover. He’ll need someone to watch over him. He’ll need to be checked in on in a few days. And so he puts the plan into action. He puts him on his own animal. He takes him to the end. We also see that in order to be merciful the Good Samaritan has the virtue of detachment. He’s detached from his own plans and his own time.
He takes the time to bring this man to the end. He looks forward and says I’ll have to take the time to come back and check on him. He’s detached from his own money and he has a sense of justice; right he gives the innkeeper money and he says if you spend any more than this, I’ll pay you back on my way back. He’s ready to spend what needs to be spent, right the time and the money, and we don’t know exactly why the other two men passed by without helping him. It was certainly lack of love, a failure of charity, but what was behind it?
Maybe they were emotionally moved; maybe it was their second reaction. It was the problem that they realized Oh, this is going to take time. What a pain or I don’t know how to address wounds or I’d like to help but I don’t know where the end is in this city. It’s going to be complicated. I don’t have any money on me. And so the Samaritan can respond to the first impulse, to help, because he had the means, because he had the human virtue; he has the capacity to actually help, the detachment, the prudence, the money to do something about it.
Our own lives
And I think this is important, Lord, when we think about our own lives. Jesus, when I think about what I should do with my life, what profession I should have, what I should get into, I really should think about what’s going to give me the opportunity to have something to offer? When I study something, I should ask myself how can this help me put charity into action? How will I be able to help someone with this knowledge?
And sometimes I think we’re too focused on ourselves when we think about our career options or our study options, and people tell us things like find your passion, only do something that you really like and find something that you’re really into, that you’re excited about. And that’s okay. But I think it can lead to a kind of very egotistic subjective way of thinking about what we’re doing or what we want to get into professionally or in our academics. Why? Because it’s all kind of based on what I feel about it or what I like about it.
The advice
Others give the advice, which I think is better, which is get good at doing something; right and when you get good at doing something, you’ll like it because you’ll be good at it, and being good at it you’ll be able to have something to offer others; right you’ll have a content to your good will and a practical content to your charity. And if not, right, we might drift from one thing to another saying Well, I’m not enthusiastic or I’m not passionate enough about this or that. It doesn’t make me happy. Well, the only thing that makes us happy in the end is loving others and being loved by others, loving God and being loved by God, and love has to have this practical content given by our study, our work, our professional skill, and given by our human virtues.
So we go to our Lord: Lord, give me a big heart in order to not pass by on the other side of the road when I see others that I can help; not to move away from them but to move towards them. And then also, Lord, give me the human skills and the human outlook and the human virtues in order to put that charity into real action; give me the prudence I need, the detachment I need, the know-how I need to help people in specific concrete ways.
It´s the end
I thank you my God for the good resolution, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me in this meditation. I ask your help to put them into effect; my Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and Lord, my guardian angel intercede for me.
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God Bless You!
