TEXT: Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 13, 2025
July 13, 2025 Father De Celles Homily
15th Sunday Ordinary Time
July 13, 2025
Homily by Fr. John De Celles
St. Raymond of Peñafort Catholic Church
Springfield, VA
In today’s Gospel Jesus gives us the famous commandment,
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
But as it did 2000 years ago, this commandment still begs the question:
“Who is my neighbor?”
Sometimes it’s difficult to understand who our neighbor is.
It’s easy to see the family next door
or the guy sitting at the next desk as our neighbor.
But others are not so easy to recognize.
It’s harder to see a person who’s a whole lot poorer than us,
or even a person living half a world away, as our neighbor.
Yet most people would agree that these are,
in fact, some of the neighbors Jesus is talking about.
For many, however, it seems impossible
to recognize certain people as their neighbor.
One of the problems is that our understanding of who our neighbor is
is often determined by emotions—either positive or negative.
If we like someone or feel sympathy toward them,
it’s easy to see them as our neighbor.
But if we don’t like someone or feel a certain repugnance toward them,
or, especially, if we feel nothing toward them,
it’s easy to not recognize them as our neighbor.
So it’s easy to recognize the person next door as our neighbor
because we like him.
And it’s even pretty easy to recognize the poor child living on the street
as our neighbor because we feel sympathy and pity for him.
But the problem is, emotions can be very misleading.
For example, the Jewish Holocaust in Nazi Germany could never have occurred
if someone hadn’t preyed on the most negative emotions of the people:
fear, bitterness, and hatred.
Then, yielding to those emotions,
otherwise good Christians failed to see Jews as their neighbor.
And the same could be said for the racial prejudice in our own country
—almost always the result of emotions like fear or resentment.
This reminds us that we can never afford to be governed by emotion.
We must instead be governed by reason and the truth.
And the truth is that my neighbor is
every single human being that God sends to me for help.
______
So, 2000 years ago, the Samaritan was the neighbor of the Jew,
and 80 years ago the Jew was the neighbor of the Nazi.
And today people of every religion and race are “my neighbor.”
The person next door and the person half a world away are my neighbor.
And the old person in the nursing home and the homeless man in the street
are my neighbor.
The kid on the playground who’s awkward and shy and doesn’t play sports well,
and the boy or girl that everyone is spreading cruel rumors about,
they are my neighbor.
The family sitting in the next pew who lost their jobs and home,
and the co-worker whose husband just left her with five kids to raise alone,
they are my neighbor.
The tiny baby in the womb or in a petri dish,
and the mother with a crisis pregnancy, are my neighbor.
And it’s not just the folks who need physical or economic help
—many times we don’t recognize our neighbor
in need of spiritual or moral help.
Like the sister who doesn’t go to Mass any more,
or the son who wants to move in with his girlfriend
or get married without a priest,
they are my neighbors whom I must help.
The guy at work with a drinking problem,
or the girl in school who thinks she has to be promiscuous to be loved,
they are my neighbors.
The person suffering from same-sex attraction struggling to be chaste
or being flagrantly promiscuous, he/she is also my neighbor.
And the person who shouts obscenities in defense of abortion
while threatening to burn down churches or pro-life centers,
yes, he/she is my neighbor.
But as the Letter of St. James reminds us in Scripture:
“If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day,
and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,’
but you do not give them the necessities of the body,
what good is [that]?”
It’s not enough to just recognize our neighbor or to wish him well
—love means doing something to help him.
This also isn’t always very easy to do.
But if a person were starving right in front of us, we’d give him food or money,
and if thousands of people were starving in Richmond,
we’d do something to help feed them.
The same thing must be done for any of our neighbors in need.
Of course, there are different ways of helping our neighbor.
Sometimes it means voting to have the government take action
or writing a check to a local charity.
Too many times, though, we automatically expect someone else
—whether it’s the government or the Church or some other charity—
to do the hard stuff.
But it shouldn’t be that way: Love must begin with us—you and me.
Pope Benedict once wrote that organizations cannot love. Only people can love.
While the Samaritan in the story does pay the innkeeper
to take care of the injured man for him,
first, Jesus says the Samaritan himself
“…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.”
See how Jesus gives us the details,
emphasizing the personal and tender efforts of the Samaritan?
Now…we always have to be prudent, especially children and young women.
Unfortunately, sometimes people are not as bad-off as they want you to believe,
and they will try to trick you to take advantage of you, or even hurt you.
Sad but true. So be careful, children especially.
But even so, our first response as Christians can’t be simply to walk away,
but rather to ask, “What can I do to really help?”
Again, being prudent, and not being overwhelmed by emotions,
we use our reason to figure out the best way for us to help.
We don’t have to sell our car in order to give money to the poor in Africa
—how would we get to work tomorrow, or take our kids to school?
But maybe you don’t buy the car with all the extra luxuries,
so you have money to give to those in need.
And you don’t have to spend all your time and effort
taking care of other people’s families
when your family needs you at home for them
—your family is your first and most important neighbor.
And you don’t have to help every worthy organization that asks,
but you can focus on a few groups that you feel truly called to help.
Unless, of course, your pastor asks you to give to a second collection.
Sometimes we give a helping hand,
sometimes we give the number for Catholic Charities.
Sometimes we give money, sometimes we can only give a prayer.
Sometimes we make a meal to bring to the family of a sick mom,
and sometimes we call the priests to let them know that she’s sick.
Sometimes we say a kind word to our neighbor who is sick, or sad, or depressed.
And sometimes we say the hard things
to our neighbor who is in desperate need of correction,
or needs to change their lifestyle.
Remember: Leaving a person to their errors, ignorance or sins
is almost never truly helpful or loving.
Imagine if the Samaritan went to the man lying on the side of the road,
and instead of “pouring oil and wine over his wounds and bandaging them,”
would just tell him, “Hey, everything will be okay. Those don’t look so bad,”
and then let him bleed to death.
_____
In the coming days, weeks and months
you will surely see some of your neighbors in need of help.
Will you be the like the priest and the scribe and see your neighbor lying in the ditch,
and silently, cowardly, cruelly move to the other side of the road
to avoid them?
Or will you be the Good Samaritan,
and go down into the ditch, lift them up and help them?
Ask yourself, “Who is my neighbor?”
Then hear the voice of Jesus say, “You shall love….your neighbor as yourself.”