Vatican City, Jul 10, 2016 / 05:56 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Sunday Pope Francis said the parable of the Good Samaritan isn’t just a nice passage to reflect on, but signifies a concrete choice we make in deciding how to live and treat those around us.
“The Good Samaritan indicates a lifestyle, the center of which is not ourselves, but others, with their difficulties, who we meet on our path and who challenge us,” the Pope said July 10.
It’s us who choose this lifestyle or choose to reject it, he said, explaining that the attitude of the Good Samaritan tests our faith, since faith without works “is dead.”
“Let us ask ourselves: is our faith fertile? Does it produce good works? Or is it rather sterile, and so more dead than alive? Do I make neighbors, or do I just pass by?” Francis asked, adding that these questions would be good to ask ourselves often, since in the end “we will be judged on the works of mercy.”
The Lord, he said, will remind us of the situations in which we saw him in those around us and either helped, or did nothing.
“Do you remember that time on the street of Jerusalem and Jericho? That man who was half dead was me. Do you remember? That hungry child was me. Do you remember? That migrant who many times they wanted to throw out was me.”
“Those grandparents, abandoned in the nursing home, was me. That sick person in the hospital, who no one visited, was me,” the Pope said, explaining that these are the questions we will be asked.”
It is through good works, done with love and joy toward our neighbor, which makes our faith sprout and bear fruit, Francis observed.
He spoke to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square who braved the Roman heat to participate in his Sunday Angelus address, focusing his entire speech on the parable of the Good Samaritan.
In his address, Pope Francis noted how Jesus used the parable to dialogue with the doctors of the law on the twofold commandment of loving God with one’s entire heart and loving one’s neighbor as oneself.
When Jesus’ disciples ask him “who is my neighbor?” it’s the same question we must each ask ourselves today, he said.
Turning to the parable itself, the Pope noted how out of the three men who pass the dying man on the road, the first two, who did nothing, were a priest and a Levite. It was the third man, an inhabitant of Samaria “despised by the Jews because they didn’t observe the true religion,” who stopped.
“It was precisely he, when he sees the poor unfortunate man, who had compassion,” Francis said, noting how the Samaritan went above and beyond just rescuing the man, but cared for him and paid for all the expenses involved in curing him.
At this point Jesus asks the doctors of the law which of the three men was a neighbor to the one beaten and left for dead, to which they all naturally respond was “the one who had compassion on him,” the Pope observed.
By doing this, Jesus “completely overturned the initial perspective of the doctors of the law,” which is frequently our own perspective as well, he said.
Francis cautioned that we mustn’t “catalogue others to decide who is my neighbor and who isn’t,” explaining that being a neighbor entails adopting the same attitude as the Samaritan toward the people we meet who need help, “even if they are a stranger or even hostile.”
The Pope then pointed to how Jesus tells his disciples to “go, and also you do the same.” Jesus, he said, repeats the same commandment to each one of us: “go and to the same, be a neighbor to the brother and sister you see in difficulty,” whether they are a stranger, a migrant, elderly or sick.
He closed his address by praying that Mary would help us to walk along the path of the Good Samaritan, which is the path “of generous love toward others.”
“May she help us to live the principal commandment that Christ left us. This is the road to enter into eternal life.”
Article Archive
The Good Samaritan isn't just a parable, it's a way of life, Pope says
Related Articles • More Articles
Pope Francis prays during his Wednesday general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican on April 24, 2024. / Credit: Vatican MediaACI Prensa Staff, Apr 25, 2024 / 16:10 pm (CNA).Asked during a new interview if he has any message for Vladimir Putin, the Russian president who instigated the war in Ukraine, Pope Francis stated that "a negotiated peace is better than an endless war."CBS News broadcast some excerpts April 24 from a new interview conducted by journalist Norah O'Donnell with Pope Francis at St. Martha House, the pontiff's residence in the Vatican.During the exchange, the full version of which will be released on May 19, the Holy Father reflected on world conflicts and especially on the suffering of children during wars.O'Donnell asked the Holy Father if he had any message for Vladimir Putin regarding Ukraine, to which the pontiff replied: "Please, countries at war, all of them... Stop the war. Seek to negotiate. Seek peace. A negotiated peace is better than an e...
An aerial view of Washington Square in San Francisco on May 22, 2020. / Credit: JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty ImagesCNA Staff, Apr 25, 2024 / 16:45 pm (CNA).San Francisco police arrested a homeless man last Sunday for allegedly stabbing a parent from a nearby Catholic school after an altercation involving the two outside a historic Catholic church in the city. Twenty-five-year-old Marko Asaulyuk of San Francisco was charged with attempted murder and eight counts of assault with a deadly weapon.The Catholic school father, who was released from the hospital Sunday, only suffered a minor injury to his leg, Father Tho Bui, pastor of Sts. Peter and Paul Church, told CNA Thursday in an email.San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone was conferring the sacrament of confirmation on the parish school's students and students from a nearby parish during a noon Mass when a "disruptive man" entered the church, as Bui described him.The man was walking up and down the main aisle of the ...
The pro-life flag from the Pro-Life Flag Project (www.prolifeflag.com). / Credit: Pro-Life Flag Project (www.prolifeflag.com)Toronto, Canada, Apr 25, 2024 / 12:50 pm (CNA).The International Pro-Life Flag will not fly over Toronto Catholic schools this May.Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) trustees voted against an April 23 motion proposed by trustee Michael Del Grande that the pro-life flag fly outside all schools and the Catholic Education Centre during the month of May, just as the board voted to fly the Pride flag in June.Del Grande's motion was defeated at the April 23 board meeting when only Garry Tanuan supported Del Grande's motion. The eight other board members in attendance and the two student trustees opposed his proposal.Though Del Grande could not muster enough backing from his colleagues, his plan, which would have also directed all TCDSB schools to teach an exclusively pro-life curriculum on May 9, the day of the National March for Life, garnered bois...