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The fellow in the Gospel today who asks Jesus to arbitrate in his claim for his brother to give him his share of the inheritance sounds a bit like the Prodigal Son in the parable we know so well. Both the man in today’s Gospel and the Prodigal Son seem to want to exercise their independence and to go their own way apart from their families
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We have a text from the Gospel of Luke today in which Jesus talks about prayer. First of all, he tells his disciples to address God as Father and gives them the prayer we know today as the Lord’s Prayer. The version of this prayer we are given in Luke is slightly shorter than the one given in Matthew where he includes the additional line ‘Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
We have for our Gospel text the very brief and simple story of Martha and Mary. Martha is busy serving the meal and getting things ready for her important guest while Mary sits at the Lord’s feet listening to him. When Martha complains that Mary is not helping to get the meal ready Jesus tells her that she shouldn’t fret so much and he informs her that Mary has chosen the better part.
Today for our Gospel reading we are given the story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus tells the young man who inquires how he might be justified that he should love God and his neighbour. I don’t know if he was trying to be smart or what but the young man asks, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ This gives Jesus the opportunity to tell the parable about the Good Samaritan.
Matthew, Mark and Luke tell us how Jesus sent the twelve apostles out on a preaching tour to prepare the people for the coming of the Kingdom of God. But only Luke gives us this account of a very similar preaching expedition involving seventy-two disciples.
The number of disciples is, of course, symbolic. Six twelves are seventy-two. If we look in Chapter Ten of the Book of Genesis we see a big list of the descendants of Noah with seventy-two names and it is said that all the tribes of the earth are descended from them. |
Father Alex McAllister SDSParish Priest of
St Thomas à Becket Wandsworth Archives
August 2019
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