Illustration: The Good Samaritan (1880) by Aimé Morot
Pope Leo’s Catechesis on The Parables (The Samaritan)
Saint Peter’s Square Wednesday, 28 May 2025
Cycle of Catechesis – Jubilee 2025. Jesus Christ our Hope. II. The life of Jesus.
The parables 7. “Jesus Christ our hope. The Samaritan. When he saw him, he had compassion” (Lk 10:33b)
Luke (10:25–37)
25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”
And he said to him, “You have answered right; do this, and you will live.”
But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion, and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denariiand gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ Which of these three, do you think, proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37
He said, “The one who showed mercy on him.” And Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
Pope Leo’s Catechesis:
Dear brothers and sisters,
We will continue to reflect on parables from the Gospels, which offer us the opportunity to change our perspective and open ourselves to hope.
Sometimes, a lack of hope is due to our fixation on a rigid and closed way of seeing things.
The parables help us to look at things from a different point of view.
Today, I would like to talk to you about a knowledgeable expert, a Doctor of the Law, who, however, needs to change his perspective because he is focused on himself and does not notice others.
He questions Jesus about how to ‘inherit’ eternal life, using an expression that treats it as an unequivocal right (“desiring to justify himself”).
However, perhaps behind this question is the concealed need for attention: the only word he asks Jesus to explain is the term ‘neighbor’, which literally means ‘he who is near’.
Jesus therefore tells a parable to transform that question, encouraging us to ask not ‘Who loves me?’ but ‘Who has loved?’ The former is immature; the latter is the question of an adult who has understood the meaning of life.
The first question is one we ask when we sit in the corner and wait.
The second is one that drives us to set out on the path.
In fact, the parable that Jesus tells is set on a difficult and impassable road, much like life itself.
A man travelling from Jerusalem, the city on the mountain, to Jericho, the city below sea level, takes this road.
This foreshadows what happens next: the man is attacked, beaten and robbed, and left for dead.
This is what happens when situations and people — sometimes even those we have trusted — take everything from us and leave us by the wayside.
However, life is made up of encounters, and it is through these that we reveal our true selves.
We find ourselves in front of others, confronted with their vulnerability and weakness, and we must decide how to act: should we take care of them, or turn a blind eye?
A priest and a Levite go down that same road. They serve in the Temple of Jerusalem and live in the sacred space. Yet the practice of worship does not automatically lead to compassion.
In fact, before it is a religious matter, compassion is a matter of humanity!
Before we are believers, we are human beings.
After staying in Jerusalem for a long time, we can imagine that the priest and the Levite are in a hurry to return home.
It is this haste, which is so prevalent in our lives, that often prevents us from feeling compassion. Those who prioritize their own journey are not willing to stop for others.
But here comes someone who can actually stop: a Samaritan, belonging to a despised people.
The text does not specify the direction in his case, only that he was travelling.
Religion is not a factor here.
This Samaritan simply stops because he sees another man in need of help.
Compassion is expressed through practical gestures.
The Evangelist Luke ponders the actions of the Samaritan, whom we call “good”, but in the text he is simply a person. A Samaritan approaches, because if you want to help someone, you cannot think of keeping your distance, you have to get involved, get dirty, perhaps be contaminated.
He binds the wounds after cleaning them with oil and wine.
He loads him onto his horse, taking on the burden, because one who truly helps if one is willing to feel the weight of the other’s pain/
He takes him to an inn where he spends money, “two silver coins”, more or less two days of work; and He undertakes to return and eventually pay more, because the other is not a package to deliver, but someone to care for.
Dear brothers and sisters, when will we too be capable of interrupting our journey and having compassion?
When we understand that the wounded man in the street represents each one of us.
And then the memory of all the times that Jesus stopped to take care of us will make us more capable of compassion.
Let us pray, then, that we can grow in humanity, so that our relationships may be truer and richer in compassion. Let us ask the Heart of Jesus for the grace increasingly to have the same feelings as him.
A summary of the Holy Father’s words:
Dear brothers and sisters: In our ongoing catechesis on the Jubilee theme of “Christ our Hope,” we now turn to another parable: that of the Good Samaritan.
Through this parable, Jesus teaches us that eternal life is found by showing mercy.
Just as the priest and the Levite who passed by on the other side, we sometimes fail to be true neighbors to those around us by becoming consumed by our own interests and the busyness of life.
The Good Samaritan surprises us with his compassion, and his generous example challenges us to overcome our selfishness.
We can also identify with the man who fell into the hands of robbers, as we have all experienced life’s difficulties and the pain caused by sin.
In our frailty, we discover that Christ himself is the Good Samaritan who heals our wounds and restores our hope.
Let us therefore turn, to the Sacred Heart, model of true humanity, and ask him to make our heart ever more his own.
