(Worldwide web)

"Abandon all hope ye who enter here."
Dante Alighieri's inscription on the entrance to Hell

My brothers,

For the second time in several months, I’ve been reflecting deeply on Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, and I must tell you, it has gripped me. Imprisoned in Auschwitz, Frankl lost everything; family, dignity, future, but not his inner freedom. “Forces beyond your control can take away everything…except one thing: your freedom to choose how you will respond.” In a time where despair reigned, he discovered that meaning - not pleasure or power - was the soul’s deepest hunger.

Now, I was reading his book through the lens of Psalm 69: “See, you lowly ones, and be glad; you who seek God, may your hearts revive!” Our anxious age, filled with loneliness, addiction, and false comforts, is starving not for more indulgence but for more meaning. And the only true path to meaning is Christ. “Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life… more precious than gold… sweeter than honey.” The Word gives life when all else crumbles.

The Gospel this Sunday puts it plainly. The scholar of the law asks the ultimate question: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus answers with the radical call to love, love God and love neighbor. But when the scholar tries to justify himself, Jesus cuts through with the story of the Good Samaritan.

The Levite and the priest had religion. But only the Samaritan had mercy. Only one chose to respond with compassion, courage, and sacrificial love. That, my brothers, is the moment of meaning!

Frankl learned and taught that suffering without meaning degrades a soul. But suffering chosen in love, as Christ did, as the Samaritan did, transforms. Every person we visit in the hospital or jail, every broken marriage or life situation we counsel, every funeral we minister is a Jericho road. And every day, we must choose: pass by, or pour oil and wine?

I've written before, we were not ordained to preserve comfort, but to pour out Christ.

So let us ask ourselves, as Jesus did: Who was the neighbor? The one who treated him with mercy. And Jesus says to us again, “Go and do likewise.”

Let us choose meaning. Let us choose mercy. Let us choose Christ.

AMDG

Receive + Believe + Teach + Practice 

Let us also pray for all our brothers on their retreat this weekend!