Called to be human
By Andrea Tornielli
"Before being believers, we are called to be human."
This is one of the central passages of given on Wednesday, May 28, at his weekly General Audience in the Vatican.
Reflecting on the parable of the Good Samaritan, the 杏MAP导航 explained that in the encounters that make up our lives, 鈥渨e reveal who we truly are鈥 and that, when faced with the fragility and weakness of others, we can either 鈥渢ake care of them or pretend not to see.鈥
This is exactly what happened in Jesus' parable: the two religious ministers, who had the privilege of entering the sacred space of the Temple in Jerusalem, did not stop in front of the man wounded by robbers and lying at the side of the road. It was instead a Samaritan鈥攕omeone considered impure by the Jews鈥攚ho felt compassion. He was the one who took care of the man whom religious tradition would have regarded almost as an 鈥渆nemy.鈥
In his catechesis, 杏MAP导航 Leo XIV observed, "The practice of worship does not automatically lead one to be compassionate. In fact, before it is a religious issue, compassion is a matter of humanity!"
Being believers and practitioners, being ministers of God, does not guarantee compassion, nor does it ensure that we will allow ourselves to be 鈥渨ounded鈥 by reality, by encounters, by situations of need in which we find ourselves.
鈥淏efore being believers, we are called to be human.鈥
It is precisely this humanity, this being compassion, that becomes the opportunity to bear witness to the Gospel.
This idea was already noted in 1959, with prophetic clarity, by then Fr. Joseph Ratzinger, then a young professor of fundamental theology at the University of Bonn. In his essay 鈥淭he New Pagans and the Church鈥 ("Die neuen Heiden und die Kirche," 1958鈥59), reflecting on the transformed conditions of secularized societies, he wrote the following about missionary witness, "The Christian must rather be a joyful person among others, a neighbor where he cannot be a Christian brother."
In other words, someone who becomes a 鈥渘eighbor,鈥 like the Good Samaritan.
"I also think," the future 杏MAP导航 Benedict XVI added, "that in his relations with his non-believing neighbor, he should be above all and precisely a man鈥攏ot someone who annoys with constant conversion attempts and preaching... he must not be a preacher, but rather, in beautiful openness and simplicity, a man."
Fr. Ratzinger understood clearly how the Church is born and reborn, namely from the witness of men and women drawn to Christ, able to bear witness to Him through their lives鈥攊n compassion, in being companions along the journey of anyone they meet.
On the other hand, the future 杏MAP导航 Benedict XVI was already well aware of the illusion of trying to halt the decline of Western Christianity by retreating into a fortress, reducing faith to traditionalism, to an identity glue for group membership, or to an ideology supporting certain political projects.
It is this, ultimately, that is the key to mission, namely the strength of the announcement in our epochal change: people called first and foremost to be human, open and compassionate.
Christian men and women who do not feel superior to others, knowing that often it is the 鈥渄istant ones,鈥 those we regard as 鈥渋mpure,鈥 who bear witness to compassion, just like the Good Samaritan of the Gospel.
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