Dear Brothers and Sisters, A simple question “who is my Neighbor” leads to one of the best known stories in the Gospels. It’s a story that has as much relevance today as it had 2000 years ago. The Samaritans were the outcasts of society looked down on and despised. It’s a Samaritan that Jesus casts as the main character in His story. He makes it very clear that the outcast shows mercy while the establishment walks by and ignores. My mother had a simple question when we were kids. Sometimes one or other of us would describe a neighbor’s or a classmate’s home and all the “things” that were in it and when we had finished she would say “but are they respectable people?” This would often puzzle us and she would sit us down and explain that things were not what made a person and that the size of a house or the amount of goods was not the measure of a person’s life. And then she would say a respectable person can walk out of a hovel and a crook can walk out of a castle. The challenge for all of us is to see in every person’s life the quality and the mercy and not judge them by their goods and possessions. “Which of these three was neighbor to the robber’s victim? The one who treated him with Mercy. Go and do likewise” Let us try to live that way. Let the journey continue, Fr Karl