Dear brothers and sisters,

Welcome to this Eucharistic celebration! Welcome to this international meeting of the Dehonian family. The meeting starts at this very moment in which we have invoked the name of the Most Holy Trinity upon us; its first official act is the celebration of the Eucharist.

Yesterday, we all greeted and introduced ourselves to each other. Many of us are unknown to each other. We all come from different places but we have something in common that makes us family. We have something in common that supports and illuminates us while on our earthly pilgrimage and helps us find our way along the road, part of which we travel together under the same banner and sharing the most precious gifts we have: life, faith, hope.

We share in the distinctive yet common experience of approaching the mystery of the Heart of Christ and discovering the infinite love of God. We share a certain "feeling with" the Church; a certain sensitivity to the world that lies "out there"; a certain commitment to the cause of the Kingdom; a certain passion for proclaiming the Gospel and its social values of justice, truth, and solidarity; a certain calling to be servants of reconciliation among persons and to be promoters of peace, human dignity, and universal brotherhood.

We share the vocation of being united to the reparatory oblation of Christ and of making his sentiments of compassion, mercy, abandonment, and total availability to God's salvific plan our own, thus cooperating in building up the civilization of love...

We have understood that this outlook on life and duty becomes realized throughout the course of each day and is a gift and heritage we have received through a transmission by means of an exemplary historical intervention, i.e., that of Fr. Dehon.

His sacramental and motivational center was the Eucharist, the source and culmination of Christian life (Lumen Gentium, 11), "as testament to the love of Christ, who delivers Himself up so that the Church might be actualized in unity and thus proclaim hope for the world" (Cst. SCJ 81).

The Eucharist is the privileged moment of our faith and of our Dehonian vocation. For this reason it shall distinguish our entire international meeting: its opening, its closing, the special time of our Jubilee Year celebration. It shall be the center of every one of these days, as Mass and Adoration.

This celebration, therefore, will not be an academic act, or peripheral to our interests or purely devotional; it is an essential part of our international meeting and expresses the spirit which is our animating source and the motive which impels us to come together and organize as the Dehonian family.

Let us be ready, then, to begin these days of communion and grace by totally throwing ourselves into God's merciful hands, and asking his pardon for our weaknesses and being open to the plan He has for this family of his.
 

• Gal. 1:6-12
• Luke 10: 25-37

The readings were not specifically selected; they are those which are normally read this day throughout the entire church. Their import is so packed with meaning and applicable to our situation that it seems to us providential and grace-filled.

The readings are an invitation to deepen our own vocation and mission according to our various states of life. They indicate the way of life that awaits us as Christians and members of the Dehonian family. In this light, I want to propose four points for our reflection:

1. begin a dialog with Jesus;

2. walk the road to Jericho;

3. discover the face of the "Good" Samaritan;

4. reaffirm our fidelity to the Gospel.

1. Begin a dialog with Jesus

In coming days we shall talk a lot to each other. We shall share a lot of things and hear each other out. But, particularly because we are Christians and are united in the name of Christ, our principal speaker should be the Lord himself.

Even though we are not on retreat, the central topic of our reflection and exchange will be the communion of different vocations around a common family tree. These vocations have a common origin and are inspired by the same outlook.

"Such a beautiful vocation" says Fr. Dehon "requires great fervor and generosity"... "it demands a habitual interior life and union with Jesus" (cf. Spiritual Testament).

It is today's gospel which seems designed to place us in this dynamic through use of the questions and answers of the lawyer and the questions posed by Jesus.

"Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?"... "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart ... and your neighbor as yourself " Do this, and you will live. "

As the evangelist himself informs us, the question the lawyer asked was not sincere; it hid a catch. Yet the question itself was important and therefore legitimate. For this reason Jesus did not steer clear of any discussion yet answered in such a way as to put things back on the proper track: he has recourse to the word of God, to divine law. And the very theologian asking the question found an answer in Sacred Scripture: the path to life is found in love of God and neighbor.

Jesus approves his answer and stamps it with a clearly effective character: "Do this and you will live". If, at an earlier moment, the lawyer seemed to want to stay at the abstract level, Jesus changes his outlook and gets him directly involved. The Word of God is alive and gets us involved in actual daily life. ""Not every one who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven (cf. Mt. 7:2 1), or be a member of Jesus' family; it is necessary to do the Father's will, receive his word, and put it into practice (cf. Luke 8:21).

Jesus identifies himself with what he says, he is the Word of God made flesh. To accept his word means to accept Christ; putting the Word into practice means following Christ, means allowing one's transformation and being converted by the word that one hears - right up to the point of having the same mind as the Heart of Christ and making the same choices he would make.

The hearing and the practice of the word have a tight relationship. There is no dichotomy nor divergence among them. This is so true that today's Gospel reading which insists on "doing" is immediately followed up by the passage of Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38-42) that will be read tomorrow where listening to Jesus will be privileged over doing.

The Gospel distinguishes between one kind of doing and another. There is a kind of doing which is insistent, unrelenting, urgent like that of the Good Samaritan; there is another kind of doing which should be subordinated to the time for hearing the word because such doing is not part of the "one thing necessary."

Only in dialog with Jesus, in closeness to him, shall we be able to deepen and bring to full growth the true essentials and be able to discern the path to life and the kind of engagement it requires.

It is not a matter of doing things, therefore; but it is a matter of doing things lovingly as an essential concomitant which at the same time puts us into dialog with God and at the service of our neighbor. Devoted attention to God renders us attentive to our brothers and sisters.

2. Walk the Road to Jericho

Jesus' answer is unambiguous. It is found as well in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark when a scribe asked Jesus what was the first and most important commandment. According to Matthew, on love of God and neighbor depend all the law and the prophets, the entire revelation from God (cf. Mt. 22:40). According to Mark, love of God and neighbor are worth more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices; the very basis of all cult and religious expression (cf. Mk. 12:33).

Where the Law was clear, the bond between the two objects of love was not. The pairing Jesus makes between love of God and love of neighbor, to the point of calling it a single commandment, is truly surprising.

No one would ever dare to put love of God and love of neighbor at the same level. It is true that the qualifications of each are different: God must be loved above all else; the neighbor must be loved as we love ourselves. Yet each has equal importance; the one cannot take place without the other. It's as though love for God had to pass through love for one's neighbor and vice versa.

The passages from the Gospel that show this correlation are numerous: from the discourse on the last judgment the statement that what is done to the least is done to Jesus himself up to the need for reconciliation as a condition for acceptable worship of God.

Love toward God and neighbor: this is the way to life; this is the inspiration and the synthesis of both the Christ's message and Christian experience.

But this kind of love is active, concrete, consisting of deeds and activities that engage us throughout our normal day. This kind of love consists in responding to appeals and challenges made to us along the way, the way that led the Good Samaritan to Jericho.

It is along this way that, by vocation, the Dehonian family is called to walk. Perhaps it is also providential that three types walk this road: a priest, a Levite (like a consecrated person in some respects), and a lay person. All three have the same challenge: to recognize wounded humanity, to have compassion for such reality, and to accept the burden for so much suffering whatever the consequences. This is not some abstract and distant reality; we are speaking of a man or woman who is wounded, half- dead on some road every day.

All three have the same temptation: seeing, being fearful, drawing some personal conclusions, going to the other side, and leaving.

Only the Samaritan has pity on the person, comes closer, and silently helps the person. The Gospel adds details almost for the sake of revealing the elegance and creativity of true love. The response of the Samaritan lies within what he can do but involves him in totality even to the extent of accepting the burden for what his neighbor might need in the future.

Fr. Dehon was a contemplative yet at the same time greatly committed to what to the Church and the World was facing in actuality. At the roots of this person who was so spiritually and socially open and involved, there was an experience that was similar to that of the Good Samaritan: he traveled greatly, saw what was out there, had great compassion, and accepted responsibility for the state of affairs because he nourished within himself the same passion for the good (i.e., justice and truth) that God had towards his creatures, toward his sons and daughters.

3. Discover the ':face" of the Good Samaritan

The particular details described by Jesus are extremely rich and provide us with a way of carrying out the first and most important commandment which in turn brings us to the way of salvation and assures us of eternal life.

The Samaritan loved without discriminating among persons . His neighbor was the one who lay wounded, in need, on the side of the road; it did not make a difference whether he was a Samaritan like himself or a Hebrew.

The Samaritan did not choose the circumstances; he did not research the type of need; he did not retreat before the unattractive condition of the one in need; he overcame every natural repugnance.

The Samaritan bent down; in a certain sense he humiliated himself and emptied himself-, he became servant as Jesus did at the last supper when he washed the feet of his disciples.

The Samaritan was generous; he gave assistance; he had solicitude and creativity toward his needy neighbor: he bandaged him and placed him on his donkey and he took him to an inn and provided for his care.

And finally, the Samaritan did all of this without counting the cost. He gave of his own substance, freely, without interest or hope of recompense.

These deeds and activities don't just take place spontaneously; they have a solid motive and a radical origin.

Luke sees the Lord Jesus himself as the Good Samaritan, par excellence. God-made-man bends down to wounded humanity and pays the price for it; he undertakes the burden of our history and the lot of every single person whose wounds he cares for; he shows the way of love and raises humanity up in dignity, even to the point of paying for it and to the point that on his return he shall bear up the brethren who have been healed by his saving love.

We see the Heart of Jesus in the Good Samaritan; the Good Shepherd; the Jesus of Nazareth who identified himself with the poor, the little ones, the least; the Master who washed the feet of his disciple and was in their midst as one who serves. We see the Heart of the Father who embraces the Prodigal Son when he returns to his father's house. We see the Heart of Jesus in his Easter gift, open on the cross, pouring out the Spirit, reminding us of the infinite love of God operative in the world and establishing the "civilization of love".

For the Dehonian family, a rediscovery of this "face" is essential, because along with Fr. Dehon we are persuaded that human wretchedness is the result of rejection of Christ' love. We are further persuaded that human dignity can nowhere be found without experiencing the love of God and for God along with love of neighbor and for neighbor.

4. Reaffirm our fidelity to the Gospel.

In the fist reading, Paul reminds the Galatians that they must remain faithful to the Gospel they have received; the "Good News" of grace and freedom which makes us Christ's servants. The Gospel is the word of salvation that God pronounced in Jesus. Jesus himself in person is the living Gospel, the presence, the revelation, the actualization of the meeting between humanity with God.

Our entire perception of the mystery of the Heart of Jesus, and consequently of the spirituality that we have in common, is placed by Fr. Dehon on the word of scripture, on the Gospel as it is handed on to us and interpreted by the Church.

In faithfulness to the Gospel - read, reflected upon, prayed over - we shall find the way to model our existence upon that Heart of Christ according to the commandment of life, love, in union with his reparative oblation and so that his Kingdom may come to be in souls and in society.

Such faithfulness will bring us to a pure love of God and neighbor that does not count costs, to a unity between contemplation and action, to prayer-adoration on the one hand and commitment to the world on the other, through acceptance of the challenges that our present time offers without turning our shoulders from human misery.

Such faithfulness and ongoing penetration by the Gospels is essential to understanding the nature and mission of the Dehonian family and to spelling out its identity.

In this Eucharist, let us as the Dehonian family therefore renew our intention to travel the road to Jericho, being guided by our faithfulness to the Gospel and our common heritage.