Why Marcus Rashford epitomises the parable of the Good Samaritan

Pope Francis’ recent encyclical Fratelli Tutti envisages and proposes a renewed world view stemming from a need for fraternal love for all men and women. As Pope Francis states in the prologue to the encyclical: “It is my desire that, in this our time, by acknowledging the dignity of each human person, we can contribute to the rebirth of a universal aspiration to fraternity.” 

Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan perfectly encapsulates the sentiment of Pope Francis’ statement. We are presented with an unlikely hero in the story, whose compassion and complete concern are for the injured man. 

Jesus’ opening to the parable is blunt and direct: “There was once a man who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when robbers attacked him, stripped him, and beat him up, leaving him half dead.”  The message is clear, that the person who has been attacked has been stripped of his dignity and left for dead. 

The next two people to encounter the victim were a priest and a Levite, two people who would have been held in high political and religious esteem of the day; they pass by on the other side of the road. Jesus’ choice of these two characters is purposeful and represent a theme that runs through the gospel. That is, that those in authority had become obsessed with their own rules and regulations rather than a deeper sense of fraternity. 

If both the priest and Levite, had indeed stopped to tend to the main by the side of the road, potentially covered in blood, they would have been rendered “unclean” within their own traditions and would not have been able to carry out their functions of leading worship. 

They would indeed have had to “self-isolate” from their normal day-to-day duties. The absence of fraternal love in these two characters is due to their obsession with regulation and following their own laws, Jesus is at pains to point out the problem with this. The Samaritan as we well know does the complete opposite, a political outsider for historic reasons stemming back to the Babylonian exile. As Jesus states, his heart was filled with pity and he tended to the victims wounds.  Jesus affords the Samaritan the final word in the parable where he states: “Take care of him,” he told the innkeeper, “and when I come back this way, I will pay you whatever else you spend on him.”  It is quite simply the story of an unlikely hero with a deep sense of fraternal love.

Over the course of the last six months and particularly over the past few weeks, we have encountered another unlikely hero of social justice in the form of Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford. He has focussed a huge amount of effort on ensuring that children who receive Free School Meals (FSM) during the school day also have access to this during the school holidays. This is an even more prevalent issue now given the upheaval that this country has seen in the job market over the past six months, especially in relation to the most vulnerable; that is, those on zero hour contracts or infrequent shift work. As Rashford stated last week: “These children matter.  These children are the future of this country. They are not just another statistic. And for as long as they don”t have a voice, they will have mine.” 

In my school, 37 per cent of the school population currently receive free school meals with a total of 60 per cent either in receipt of FSM either now or in the previous six years. That places our school in the top five per cent of deprivation in the country, which often surprises people given the location of my school. 

During lockdown, we became aware that a number of our families were living on their child”s FSM allocation for that week. We saw families living on £22 a week. This was due to them losing their income and not being covered by the furlough scheme. We worked alongside fantastic charities such as Caritas, the Catholic Children”s society and the Kensington Foundation to secure an additional £17,000 to support families with food for the summer or purchasing school uniform. 

Unfortunately, there is a lazy journalism that exists in this country that pedals the myth that somehow some people are scroungers looking to swindle the system. This is not my experience. My experience is that families don”t come in demanding handouts, far from it, on the whole, they are embarrassed and often have to be convinced to accept the support. I don”t know how it is possible to reconcile being a Catholic and walking by as this happens; like the priest and Levite.

School holidays, like this half term, are financially more challenging for low income families, they don’t receive their free school meal allocation and in affect have to offer three meals a day for nine days. Most schools offer breakfast clubs in addition to the free school meal offer to further support families, therefore the cost to parents in a school holiday becomes even greater – particularly if you are feeding teenagers. As we know, the hospitality sector has been hit greatly by Covid and lockdown restrictions, yet it has been heartening to see so many restaurant owners up and down the country backing Rashford’s pleas to feed our nation’s children; fraternal love in action.

When MPs went voted against extending the free school meals scheme into this half term, I wonder what they felt in their hearts. I know that multiple excuses have been given suggesting that this should be done through the welfare state or benefits system. But it already exists in within the current education system for 39 weeks of the year calendar year. This just sounds like the priest and the Levite obsessed with following their own laws and regulations – finding an excuse not to help. I find it hard to believe that these politicians truly believed that what they were doing was the right and moral thing to do, but rather were whipped to follow a party line. Feeding children goes far beyond party lines.

As we move into the Autumn term, it appears increasingly likely that the pandemic will worsen and impose further restrictions on various different sectors. It is more likely that the families we are dealing with will take an even greater dent to their incomes and face even further challenges as we approach Christmas. As Pope Francis continues to write in the same part of the aforementioned prologue: “No one can face life in isolation. We need a community that supports and helps us, in which we can help one another to keep looking ahead.” At present, we run the risk of marginalising so many low-income families and leaving them to face isolation. More than ever it is essential that every part of our society heeds the message of Fratelli Tutti and become Good Samaritans, however big or small you are.