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Michael Weeder's avatar

Dear Father Andrew, I have been amiss all these months for failing to acknowledge how your weekly reflections have been a guide and support to me. I’m grateful and thankful

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Andrew McGowan's avatar

Dean Michael how good to hear and how gracious of you to comment. I’m so glad these are of use. Keep us in your prayers as events unfold here - you are in ours.

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Joshua Hill's avatar

I just love how you think and write. I also really appreciated the nod to the Samaritan's emotional experience and how it shows up in the lost son also. I also discovered that the same word, "splagchnizomai," appears in Luke 7 the healing of the widow's son. In all 3 cases there's a parallel storytelling formula wherein the plot hinges on the "compassion in the guts" of the divine protagonist. I can't for the life of me figure out how I wrote 25 pages on this for Adela Collins. But it was an exciting discovery to me that Luke's Jesus is a feeler.

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Andrew McGowan's avatar

It does my own splangchna good to read this!

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Alistair P D Bain's avatar

Also the word in Matt 9 where Jesus beholds the "sheep without a shepherd." My Greek teacher [ie the one who taught me NT Greek!] observed that splangnisthomai could be rendered "moved to the bowels," thus indicating the profound visceral nature of Jesus' compassion.

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Joshua Hill's avatar

indeed

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Krikit's Songs's avatar

Question: the man was a "lawyer." Do we know what that meant?

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Andrew McGowan's avatar

Sorry I had missed this. Yes we do, but it's not easy to translate. It does not mean he was an attorney; it means he was a scholar and teacher of "the Law," as in the Law of Moses, the Torah. He was an interpreter. This becomes a bit clearer when Jesus asks him "what is written in the Law?"

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Krikit's Songs's avatar

Is there a prophetic "mirror" in this story? I am reminded of Psalm 40: "In sacrifice and offering you take no pleasure"; and Isaiah 1: "What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices. ... Incense is an abomination to me ... I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity ... Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow." <Various verses>

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