“But, my dear friends, we forget; nothing is ours. Everything we have, we have received – everything, to the next minute, to the next breath we draw – all gifts of God. Sadly, we become so enamored with His gifts, we do not possess them; they possess us, and we become slaves to the gifts of our God, because we are blinded by the sinfulness within us. And then there is the philosophy of the Samaritan. It is interesting that our Lord does not call him “good. “Neither does Saint Luke. He’s called the “good Samaritan” by the world because his is the philosophy that should be ours: “What is mine is yours, and I shall share it. “This is what our Lord taught us – to give our cloak as well as our coat, to go the extra mile; to forgive not seven times, but seventy times seven times; not to refuse him who wants to borrow from us. This is the Christian philosophy by which you and I strive to live.”
From the book: Reflections with Father Leo Clifford O.F.M.