Reflection for the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

"It is indeed haste, so present in our lives, that very often prevents us from feeling compassion. Those who think that their own journey must take precedence are not willing to stop for another. But here comes someone who is actually able to stop: he is a Samaritan, hence a person belonging to a despised people ...Religiosity does not enter into this. This Samaritan simply stops because he is a man faced with another man in need of help. Compassion is expressed through practical gestures... because if you want to help someone, you cannot think of keeping your distance, you have to get involved, get dirty, perhaps be contaminated; he binds the wounds after cleaning them with oil and wine; he loads him onto his horse, taking on the burden, because one who truly helps is willing to feel the weight of the other’s pain; he takes him to an inn where he spends money, 'two silver coins', more or less two days of work; and he undertakes to return and eventually pay more, because the other is not a package to deliver, but someone to care for. Dear brothers and sisters, when will we too be capable of interrupting our journey and having compassion? When we understand that the wounded man in the street represents each one of us. And then the memory of all the times that Jesus stopped to take care of us will make us more capable of compassion. Let us pray, then, that we can grow in humanity, so that our relationships may be truer and richer in compassion. Let us ask the Heart of Jesus for the grace increasingly to have the same feelings as him."

--Pope Leo XIV, General Audience, May 28, 2025