Pope: Indifference to the suffering of man is to ignore God
Jesus teaches us not to "categorize others to see who is our neighbor and who is not. You can become a neighbor to whomever you meet in need, and you will be if you have compassion in your heart, that is if you are capable of suffering with others".
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Faced with the suffering of "so many people exhausted by hunger, violence and injustice, we cannot remain as spectators. To ignore human suffering is ignore God!" because "compassion" is an essential feature of God’s mercy. The" neighbor "of which the parable of the Good Samaritan speaks was the focus of the Pope’s general audience, in which Francis pointed out that our "neighbor" is anyone who is "in need" and not just our relatives, compatriots or those who share the same religion.
Speaking to the 30 thousand people present in St Peter's Square, the Pope proposed the parable in which "a doctor of the law wanted to test Jesus with this question: "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? "(V. 25) . Jesus asks him to give the answer himself, and he does so perfectly: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself "(v. 27). And Jesus concludes: " 'Do this and you will live" (v. 28). Then the man asks another question, which becomes very valuable for us, "Who is my neighbor?" (V. 29), and implies: 'My relatives? My fellow countrymen? Those of my religion? ... '. In short, he wants a clear rule that allows him to classify the others in 'neighbor' and 'non-neighbor'. Those who can become our neighbor, and those who cannot. Jesus responds with a parable, which portrays a priest, a Levite and a Samaritan. The first two figures are linked to the cult of the temple; the third is a schismatic Jew, regarded as a foreigner, pagan and impure, namely the Samaritan. On the road from Jerusalem to Jericho, the priest and the Levite come across a dying man, whom robbers attacked, robbed and abandoned. The law of the Lord in such situations required he be rescued, but both pass by without stopping. Maybe they were in a hurry. They were in a hurry ... The priest, perhaps, he looked at his watch and said: 'But, I will be late to Mass ... I must say Mass'. And the other said: 'But I do not know if the law will allow me, because there's blood there and I will be impure ...'. They take another road and did not draw close [to the man]".
"And here the parable offers us a first lesson: it is not automatic that those who attend the house of God and know His mercy know how to love their neighbor. It is not automatic! You can know all the Bible, you can know all the liturgical rubrics, you can learn all of the theology, but knowledge does not automatically lead to love: loving has another road, it is not automatic, love has another road. With intelligence, but something more .... The priest and the Levite they see, but they ignore; they look, but do not take action. Yet there is no true religion if it does not translate into service to others. Let us never forget: Faced with the suffering of "so many people exhausted by hunger, violence and injustice, we cannot remain as spectators. To ignore human suffering is ignore God! If I do not I draw close to that man, that woman, that child, the suffering elderly, I did not draw close to God".
"But let's get to the heart of the parable: the Samaritan, who is despised, the one on which no one would have bet anything, and who anyway had his commitments and his things to do, when he saw the injured man, he did not pass by like the other two, who were bound to the Temple, but "had compassion" (v. 33). So says the Gospel: 'He had compassion', heart, the guts, he was moved! That's the difference. The other two 'saw', but their hearts remained closed, cold. Instead, the heart of the Samaritan was attuned to the heart of God. In fact, 'compassion' is an essential feature of the mercy of God. God has compassion for us. What does it mean? He suffers with us, He feels our sufferings. Compassion: 'share with'. The verb indicates that our bowels move and quiver at the sight of man’s evil. And in the gestures and actions of the good Samaritan we recognize the merciful act of God in the whole history of salvation. It is the same compassion with which the Lord comes to meet each one of us: He does not ignore us, He knows our sorrows, He knows that we need help and consolation. He is close and will never abandon us”.
"So we can, each of us, ask ourselves a question and answer in our hearts: 'Do I believe? Do I believe that the Lord has compassion for me, as I am, sinful, with so many problems and so many things? '. Think about that, and the answer is: 'Yes!'. But everyone has to look into their heart to see whether they have faith in this God's compassion, good God who draws close to us, heals us, caresses us. And if we reject Him, He waits: He is patient! Always beside us”.
"The Samaritan acts with true mercy: He binds the man's wounds, carries him to a hotel, takes care of him personally and ensures his care. All this teaches us that compassion, love, is not a vague feeling, but it means caring to the point of paying in person. It means compromising taking all the necessary steps to ‘draw closer' to each other to the point of empathizing with the other: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Here is the commandment of the Lord. On concluding the parable, Jesus in turn poses a question to the doctor of the Law and asks him: "Which of these three do you think was neighbor to the man who fell among robbers?" (V. 36). The answer is finally clear: "He who showed mercy on him" (v. 27). At the beginning of the parable the priest and the Levite were neighbors to the dying man; in the end it is the Samaritan who became a neighbor to the man. Jesus reverses the perspective: Do not classify others to see who is our neighbor and who is not. You can become a neighbor to whomever you meet in need, and you will be if you have compassion in your heart, that is if you are capable of suffering with others".
"This parable is a wonderful gift for all of us, and also a commitment! To each of us, Jesus repeats what he said to the doctor of the Law: "Go 'and you too do good '(v. 37). We are all called to travel the same path of the Good Samaritan, which is the figure of Christ: Jesus bent over us, became our servant, and so saved us, so that we can love one another as he loved us, in the same way".
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