Pope Leo XIV: Before being believers, we are called to be human

Pope Leo XIV presided on Wednesday, May 28, the second general audience of his pontificate, in which he reflected on the parable of the good Samaritan.

The Holy Father recalled at the beginning of his catechesis, aimed at the faithful gathered in the Plaza de San Pedro, who the parables of the Gospel offer an opportunity “to change perspective and open ourselves to hope.”

The lack of hope, said the pontiff, sometimes we must “be trapped in a certain rigid and closed form of seeing things”, and the parables “help us look at them from another point of view.”

Next, he recalled that Jesus proposes this parable to a doctor of the law who asks “Master, what should I do to achieve eternal life?”(Cf. Lk 10,25-37), and then Jesus invites him to love neighbor.

“The practice of worship does not automatically lead to being compassionate”

The parable of the good Samaritan has as its scenario a “difficult and rough, like life,” said the Pope. In fact, the man who crosses him “is assaulted, beaten, stripped and abandoned half dead.”

“It is the experience that is lived when situations, people, sometimes even those in whom we have trusted, take away everything and leave us lying,” said the pontiff.

Next, Leo XIV said that “life is made of encounters, and in these meetings we reveal ourselves as we are. We are facing the other, in the face of its fragility and weakness, and we can decide what to do: take care of it or do as if nothing.”

He recalled that the priest and the Levite went down that same path and did not stop to help him. “The practice of worship does not automatically lead to being compassionate. In fact, before a religious issue, compassion is a matter of humanity! Before being believers, we are called to be human,” he said.

Hurry prevents us from feeling compassion

The Pope also stressed that “the rush, so present in our life, often prevents us from feeling compassion. Who thinks that his trip must have the priority, he is not willing to stop for another.”

However, the Samaritan, who belonged to a despised people, decided to stop to help man. In this way, Leo XIV stressed that “religiosity here has nothing to do. This Samaritan stops simply because he is a man before another man who needs help.”

He also said that the compassion “is expressed through concrete gestures”, remembering that the Samaritan “approaches, because if you want to help someone, you cannot think about staying at a distance, you have to get involved, get dirty, perhaps contaminate you.”

“It only really helps if you are willing to feel the weight of the other’s pain,” said Pope Leo XIV.

“When will we also be able to interrupt our trip and have compassion? When we have understood that this man injured on the road represents each of us. And then, the memory of all the times Jesus stopped to take care of us will make us more capable of compassion,” he added.

Finally, he invited the faithful to pray to “grow in humanity, so that our relationships are more true and richer in compassion.”

“Let us ask the heart of Christ the grace of having more and more their feelings,” he concluded.

After greeting the pilgrims from different countries, the Holy Father sang our father in Latin and gave his blessing to the faithful present, who heard him carefully despite the high temperatures and the intense sun of Roman spring.