Rather Than “pointing fingers at others”, Pray to See as God Sees Them: Pope Francis

The pope said the first Christians were called “disciples of the Way,” because they followed Jesus Christ, who is “the way, and the truth, and the life.”

As Christian believers, Francis said, we strongly resemble the Good Samaritan in the parable because we are also on a journey.

“Walking in the footsteps of Christ, the disciple becomes a wayfarer and — like the Samaritan — learns to see and to have compassion,” he said.

To really see, the pope said, means to have eyes open to reality, “not egoistically closed in on the circle of their own thoughts.”

“The Gospel teaches us to see — it leads each of us to correctly understand reality, overcoming preconceptions and dogmatism each day,” he continued, adding that “so many believers take refuge behind dogmatisms to defend themselves from reality.”

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Having eyes open to reality “teaches us to follow Jesus, because following Jesus teaches us to have compassion — to see and to have compassion — to become aware of others, especially those who suffer, those who are in need, and to intervene like the Samaritan, not to pass by but to stop,” he said.

Pope Francis also encouraged everyone to not avoid human contact with the people they help.

“If you give alms without touching the reality, without looking into the eyes of the person in need, those alms are for you, not for that person,” he said. “Think about this. Do I touch misery, even the misery that I am helping? Do I look into the eyes of the people who suffer, of the people that I help?”

Hannah Brockhaus is Catholic News Agency's senior Rome correspondent. She grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and has a degree in English from Truman State University in Missouri.