Dear Parishioners,
What strikes me about the Good Samaritan on this occasion, praying over the parable (and a lot of things have struck me about the parable over the years, praying with it), is that the Samaritan makes time for the man who is lying beaten and robbed on the side of the road. The Samaritan, I’m sure, was busy. I’m sure he had things to do, places to be. He’s traveling, after all. We all know what it’s like to travel. We’re on a strict time frame, whether it’s with our flight or some other reservation. We don’t have time. We’re in a rush and need to get where we’re meant to be.
Dear Parishioners,
New Melleray Trappist Abbey, where I was on retreat a couple weeks ago, is somewhat out in the country. Once a day I would try to get some exercise and would go walking or running through the countryside. The rolling hills allowed me to see for miles and miles, and there was nothing but beautiful farmland. I ran through these long, straight roads that cut through the acres beyond acres of corn and soy crops, and I thought to myself, “this is how we are able to feed the earth’s population.” The land gave me a great appreciation for our creation and how God has blessed us. There won’t be a shortage of food. These crops, which I was running through, will go to feed us, or feed animals that will feed us, or go to make machines and technology that will feed us.
Dear Parishioners,
This is such an interesting scene with Jesus and his disciples. Our Lord is rejected by a Samaritan town and my boys, James and John (I’m named after James so I always take note of his actions in the Gospels), ask the Lord if they can send down fire to destroy the town. Jesus says, “Yeah, sure, let’s burn it down.”
Father James Wallace grew up in Winnetka, Illinois and attended Sts. Faith Hope and Charity grammar school, New Trier High School, and then The George Washington University in Washington DC, where he earned his undergraduate degree in Political Science in 2007. He attended seminary at The Pontifical North American College in Rome and was ordained a priest in 2012 for the Archdiocese of Chicago. In addition to being the pastor of Saint Paul of the Cross Parish, he serves as a canon lawyer for the Archdiocese, a dean in Vicariate II, and a professor of canon law and spiritual director at Mundelein Seminary. He is also one of the featured Mercy Home Sunday Mass celebrants, airing Sundays at 9:30am on WGN.
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