Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

The parable of the Good Samaritan that the Gospel presents to us today is perhaps the most timely parable and the one that we most urgently need to read and meditate on in the Church. It is not in vain that Pope Francis dedicates a long chapter to it in his wonderful encyclical Fratelli Tutti. Beyond the interesting dialogue between Jesus and the Pharisee, the Gospel invites us to stop at the fallen man, abandoned in a ditch on the road where priests and Levites pass on their way to the temple, and on which a Samaritan is also going, from whom nothing could be expected, except great compassion. It is precisely this man bent down towards the other fallen into the gutter who will represent for Jesus the image of the true neighbor, of the true human being that this world needs so much. There are so many men today who are assaulted and left in the gutters of life who are waiting for our compassion! Let us pause and ask Jesus to give us his compassionate gaze to stop before so many persons left in the gutter of life.