A Sunday school teacher wanted to impress on the children the moral of the Good Samaritan. So she gave them vivid details of the beaten and robbed man taken to an inn by a stranger and shown the greatest respect and charity-while the religious types had all avoided him.

Finally, she asked the class, "So--if you saw a person lying on the roadside all wounded and bleeding, what would you do?" hoping to hear the morally correct answer. Into the total silence, one little girl whispered, "I think I'd throw up."

Feeling Our Feelings

She cut right to the chase! Wouldn't that be true for most of us if we were confronted by the deranged man in the gospel today? We'd feel sick, irritated-or just relieved that Jesus was dealing with it!

There is nothing wrong with feeling our honest feelings. But today we are almost overcome with TV, radio, and internet reporting on wars, violence, starvation, and tragedies. People cry out on every side for relief and justice-how can we possibly deal with all of this pain? When the psalm today says "Don't harden your hearts" to God's voice-we wonder how NOT to harden our hearts, how to avoid getting "compassion fatigue."

Silence, the First Step

How does Jesus deal with demands for help? When others walk away, Jesus approaches, and listens. Only after he lets evil speak does he confront it, and sets the person free.

When Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez was asked, "How do you meet the needs of the poorest of the poor in Latin America?" he replied, "The first step is silence." Silence allows us to look, to see, to contemplate what is happening right in front of our eyes. Silence allows us to LISTEN to God's urgings. This is why, even when we are tired, troubled in spirit, and want to give up, it is important to keep our connection to God open.

Jesus must have often been exhausted, sad, worn out by the effects of evil-just picturing Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane gives us some idea. But he nurtured his state of contemplation with God, always turning to God for strength and help. Then he could face the reality of sin and evil squarely, so that the person can be set free.

Look how the unclean spirits in the gospel today want to hide-we know from our own sins, whatever is of darkness wants to hide from God. Evil doesn't want to be known, as Jesus wants to know it and heal it. Jesus' way of dealing with evil is the opposite of silence and hiding-he requires evil to "Come out of him!" Be seen, be known, and identify yourself- and then, "Begone, Satan!"

Meet Evil Where It Lives

Have you noticed how some of our greatest ministries operate just like that-by tearing the lid off of the pain and suffering, revealing it for what it is, so that it can be healed? For example, when we see pierced and tattooed kids on the streets, we might walk the other way to avoid them. Covenant House takes these children off the streets and listens to their terrible stories of abuse, fear, abandonment, and violence. Once their stories are revealed to the light, healing hands can help the children slowly begin to heal.

Or do you know a miserable married couple who are heading for divorce? Maybe we avoid them so we don't "get caught in the middle." In the Retrouvaille ("retro-vi") program, those troubled couples listen to the stories told by the lead couples who have already healed their failing marriages. The Retrouvaille leaders do not hide their sad truth from the light-they reveal the unclean spirits of violence, cheating, abuse, addiction, and the misery of a disintegrating marriage. The new couples listen, and learn to face the unclean spirits in their own marriages honestly.

Vatican II documents tell us the Church's goal is quite simply "to carry forward the work of Christ under the lead of the befriending Spirit" (Gaudium et Spes).