XXIV Sunday after Pentecost:“Go, and do likewise” (Lk 10:37).

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to the Apostle and Evangelist Saint Luke (Lk 10:25–37).

“And behold, a lawyer stood up to test Him, saying, ‘Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ He said to him, ‘What is written in the Law? How do you read it?’

He answered, ‘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 neighbour as yourself.’

He said to him, ‘You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.’

But he, wishing to justify himself, said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’

Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.

Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.

Likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with compassion.

He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; then he set him on his own beast, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, “Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.”

‘Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’

He said, ‘The one who showed mercy to him.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Go, and do likewise.’”

Homily.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Beloved brothers and sisters, the Word we have heard today places before us two verbs that change life: to be reconciled and to become a neighbour. These verbs are not abstract ideas but movements that arise from the Person of Christ and that the Church is called to make visible in the world. Let us read together how the theology of Saint Paul and the parable of the Good Samaritan illuminate and challenge our contemporary experience.

Saint Paul proclaims firmly: “He is our peace” (Eph 2:14). This statement is not a moral slogan; it indicates the ontological reality of Christ, who in His flesh has transformed human history. When the Apostle speaks of the “dividing wall of hostility,” he is thinking of the barrier that separated the courts in the Temple; but its meaning is deeper: every barrier that divides human beings—ethnic, cultural, religious, moral—finds its healing in the Cross of Christ.

This is not a simple rapprochement: Christ acts by transforming the very causes of enmity and creating “one new man” (Eph 2:15). The Fathers express this truth with clarity: Saint John Chrysostom observes that Christ “did not merely unite them, but forged them into one single reality” (Homilies on Ephesians, Homily 5, PG 62, 39). And Irenaeus affirms: “Where the Church is, there is the Spirit; and where the Spirit is, there are the Church and every grace” (Against Heresies, III, 24,1).

If the Church is this “dwelling place of God in the Spirit” (Eph 2:22), our commitment cannot be to build new walls around the faith; on the contrary, every word and gesture of Christians must be an act of reconciliation. In our time—marked by polarization and loneliness—the Pauline proclamation calls us to a practical conversion: not to make faith an identity closed in on itself, but to make it the place of concrete reconciliation.

From this Pauline perspective, the Gospel today shows us how communion becomes tangible: through active mercy. The lawyer asks, “Who is my neighbour?”, seeking a definition that will reassure him; Jesus instead tells a parable that breaks every boundary. The Samaritan, an “unlikely” figure for the Jewish listener, becomes the protagonist of compassion.

The Fathers read the parable in a Christological and ecclesial key: Origen sees in the Samaritan Christ Himself, who bends over wounded humanity and brings it to the inn—that is, the Church—for healing (Homilies on Luke, 34, PG 13, 1893). Saint Ambrose affirms that the wounded traveller is humanity and the Samaritan is Christ who brings healing (Expositio in Lucam, VII, PL 15, 1784).

But the parable does not remain at an allegorical level: it indicates a practical path. Mercy begins when we stop—when we interrupt our pace to listen, to see, to bend down. The Samaritan not only stops: he binds the wounds, uses oil and wine (signs traditionally read as sacramental symbols), carries the man, pays, and commits himself to the future of the wounded one. Saint Basil reminds us that “the true neighbour is not the one close by blood, but the one close in mercy” (Regulae, PG 31, 908).

Ultimately, the parable invites us to pass from the principle of duty to the logic of love: not asking “to whom do I owe something?” but “who needs me?”. And this question transforms not only concrete actions but the very structure of our gaze upon the world.

It is precisely this dynamic—stopping, becoming a neighbour, taking care—that I saw embodied in an episode I carry in my heart. During my time in Australia, when I was still searching for the true Faith, I took part in the prayer meetings promoted by the seminary of Melbourne. Each month, young men in discernment and seminarians gathered for the Mass and a time of fraternity at the parish of Our Lady, Star of the Sea.

One winter evening, at the end of the celebration, I saw a homeless man lying down on the church porch. The air was sharp, and his breath seemed to lose warmth. There was no discussion, no hesitation: the parish priest, with that evangelical simplicity that cannot be learned from manuals, ran to the rectory, fetched a blanket, and placed it over the trembling body of that man. That gesture—swift, humble, almost liturgical in its tenderness—became for me an image of the Gospel more eloquent than a thousand words.

The scene warmed my heart more than that blanket: I understood that it is the concreteness of charity that reveals the face of Christ. That priest, without quoting the Fathers or giving long speeches, embodied the parable and showed how the Church can be an inn, a place of care, a presence. For me it was a revelation: faith is called to take flesh in gestures that heal, sustain, and reconcile.

If the heart of the Word is to break down walls and to become a neighbour, we must ask: how do we live this Gospel in our communities, in our cities, in our daily relationships? We live in an age of great fragility: broken families, hidden poverty, lonely elderly people, young people searching for meaning, migrants wounded by their journey, people marginalized by society. Often the dominant response is to close in, protect one’s space, raise barriers.

But the Word reminds us that the way is the opposite: Saint Gregory of Nyssa warns us not to remain insensitive and calls us to imitate divine love through works of mercy (On the Love of the Poor, PG 46, 466). Saint Maximus the Confessor adds that love for one’s neighbour is the measure of love for God: we cannot claim to love the One we do not see if we ignore the person we do see (Centuries on Charity, PG 90, 964).

Therefore, the mission of the Church today is twofold and inseparable: to build spaces of communion that reflect the peace of Christ (as Paul teaches) and to make mercy a daily, concrete, stable practice (as the parable teaches). This means parish policies of hospitality to the poor, closeness to fragile families, attentive listening to adolescents, cooperation with institutions to respond to social and housing emergencies; it means, ultimately, transforming our communities into “inns” where the wounded find care and the lonely find companionship.

When the Church lives in this way, she is no longer perceived as a distant institution but as the living presence of Christ who breaks walls and binds wounds. And thus our witness becomes credible and attractive to a world hungry for meaning and solidarity.

Brothers and sisters, the Word we have heard today is not a theory to contemplate from afar: it is a call to action. Christ is our peace: let Him break down the walls within us. Jesus sets before each of us the command: “Go, and do likewise” (Lk 10:37).

Let us ask the Lord, through the intercession of the Fathers and the saints, for the grace of eyes that truly see, of hands that bend down, and of the courage to build bridges where others build walls. And let us begin with the small things: with patient listening, with the immediate gesture that seeks no applause, with the steady presence beside the most fragile.

In this way, our community may become that “holy temple” of which Saint Paul speaks: a place where God dwells in the Spirit and where wounded humanity can rediscover healing and brotherhood.

Blessed be the name of the Lord, now and forever. Amen.

Archpriest Michele Alberto Del Duca