Today the XIV Week of Poverty and Exclusion has come to an end. Manuel Pareja, general secretary of Cáritas Diocesana, has introduced Fray Felipe Ortuno, commander of the Mercedarians in Jerez.
He focused his intervention on the Gospel and on the parable of the good Samaritan with a reflection on the neighbor from the Christian point of view. He explained that “the neighbor is not the object of discussion, since we are not dealing with objects of analysis, he is the subject of love” since “the Christian problem is not to know who your neighbor is, but to become a neighbor, since everyone has the right to my love and that is where we have to cancel the distances ”.
He then emphasized that “the Samaritan Church is the one that is transforming its surroundings, the one that creates fraternity, commitment, mercy, spirit and flesh… it is thinking, praying and doing” and added that “you have to feel sorry for , have a heart, mercy, you have to shudder, be endearing and feel like a mother ”. He also insisted on the importance of “a Church with sensitivity, which is not content to simply see, but is capable of stopping and getting involved with passion and mercy, with a quality of love, in the realities that happen to us, since we do not It is enough that we are people who calm down by not hurting anyone, nor can indifference be justified.
Next, he reflected on the challenge that the Church has to “improvise every day, get out of the routine, the rigid, the programmed, and that is to give channel to the Holy Spirit… to be prepared in spirit for the unforeseen, for the unexpected, to the surprise.
