- 13 July, 2025
Rome, July 13, 2025 : Pope Leo XIV, celebrating Sunday Mass at the Parish of St. Thomas of Villanova in Castel Gandolfo where he is spending his summer retreat, urged the faithful to imitate Christ, the Good Samaritan, reminding them that those who experience God’s love and healing can share that same consolation with others.
“Once we are healed and loved by Christ, we too can become witnesses of His love and compassion in our world,” the Pope said, reflecting on the Parable of the Good Samaritan from the day’s Gospel according to St. Luke.
Expressing his joy at celebrating the Eucharist with the congregation, the Pope described the parable as “one of Jesus’ most beautiful and moving,” noting that it challenges believers to examine their own lives and cautions against a faith limited to outward observance, lacking God’s merciful compassion.
He emphasised that the story is fundamentally about compassion, underlining that “how we look at others is what counts, because it shows what is in our hearts.” He contrasted the choice to “look and walk by” with looking and being “moved with compassion.”
The Pope explained that the Good Samaritan symbolises Jesus, “the eternal Son whom the Father sent into our history precisely because he regarded humanity with compassion and did not walk by.” He likened humanity’s plight to the man left half-dead on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, adding that today’s world still faces “the darkness of evil, suffering, poverty and the riddle of death.”
Yet, Pope Leo reassured the faithful that God “looked upon us with compassion” and, in Jesus the Good Samaritan, came “to heal our wounds and to pour out upon us the balm of his love and mercy.”
Quoting the late Pope Francis, who described Jesus as “the compassion of the Father toward us,” and Saint Augustine, who taught that Jesus “wanted to be known as our neighbour,” the Pope reflected that discipleship requires adopting Christ’s own feelings and compassion.
This, he said, involves cultivating a heart moved by others, eyes that see suffering and do not look away, hands that help, and shoulders ready to carry others’ burdens. “If we realise deep down that Christ, the Good Samaritan, loves us and cares for us, we too will be moved to love in the same way and to become compassionate as He is.”
Calling for a “revolution of love,” the Pope described today’s road from Jerusalem to Jericho as travelled by those weighed down by sin, suffering, poverty, tyranny, economic injustice, and war. He challenged the faithful not to walk by indifferently but to open their hearts like the Samaritan.
Quoting Pope Benedict XVI, he highlighted that Jesus “turns the whole matter on its head,” showing that the Samaritan becomes a neighbour through compassion, teaching believers to let their hearts be “shaken up by another’s need.”
Pope Leo concluded with a call to action: “Let us look to Christ, the Good Samaritan. Let us listen again today to His voice. For He says to each of us, ‘Go and do likewise.’”
Courtesy: Vatican News
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