15th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Deuteronomy 30:10-14; Colossians 1:15-20; Luke 10:25-37

Pleading ignorance seems to be an ancient device. This is not strange, considering that I have used it many times to distance myself from the truth I may prefer to avoid. Once a question is asked, however, and the answer given, I am faced with having to act-or not act-on what I know deep within me.

I have watched many long-term atheists like Richard Dawkins debating against the presence of the Mystery, I call God. I have noticed their obvious trouble ducking their heads under the water of spiritual awakening--they are just too intellectual or is it ‘wilful ignorance’.

Today’s readings suggest that the answers to some key questions of life that believers and non-believers might ask are really quite close at hand.

“It is not up in the sky nor across the sea…No, it is something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts, you have only to carry it out” (Deut.30)

If I was to ask what I have to do to live in God, the answer, it seems, is not hard to find. It is not written in dusty books or catechisms that we no longer use, nor is it couched in language from another age. God’s “voice” and “language” are not spoken or written in expressions from the past. It would make it too easy for anyone to dismiss them as irrelevant.

No, the answer to what we must do if we really want to live life to the full is found in the ordinary human experience of our lives and in the word we have heard often enough:“Love your neighbour as yourself”.

This commandment was close to the hearts and mouths of the Jews. It became a written law and the words were literally “in their mouths”. Certainly what is required of us is to allow the words surface from “our hearts”, so that we intuitively and instinctively know how to respond from our hearts. The trouble seems to be acting on what we know to be true.

In any case, the message of the Good Samaritan is that we live out of what is closest to our hearts and spoken from our lips. If we choose not to do that, the question will always remain, “What must I do?” when deep inside we know that a portion of the answer lies in us.

The heart knows best how to respond.. You and I don’t have to look too far.