Lesson from the Samaritan: Become a cause of change

Pope St. John Paul II wrote his landmark encyclical on the sanctity of human life, Evangelium Vitae, because many in secularized society had become desensitized to the pre-eminent dignity of every person. He rejected the culture of death and its assault on human dignity through deviant ideologies, pervasive immorality, and the false application of science and technology. In response, the sainted pope called all people to reaffirm “the value of human life and its inviolability” and to “respect, protect, love, and serve life” — to live lives in a way that affirms human dignity and to teach others to do so as well.

Because of this lost sense of sacredness — an understanding of the transcendent source of a human person’s dignity, which is God — it is difficult for many to believe that anything could be truly sacred, always possessing a dignity that commands respect. So how do we awaken in contemporary society an understanding that each human person is not just something but someone to be respected, defended, loved, and served in every circumstance?

Here I am reminded of Isaac Newton’s first law of motion, which says that an object remains at rest — or in motion — unless acted on by an outside force. In other words, there must be a cause for there to be any change.

We, therefore, must be this cause, this means of change, by advancing the Christian vision of society best expressed in the phrase used by John Paul II— “the civilization of life and love.” This vision is the natural outflowing of a radically different anthropology, one that understands human beings as made in the image and likeness of God. As the phrase suggests, people are bound together by love for one another. The dignity of the human person serves as the foundation of a healthy and moral society.

Jesus teaches this vision in the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), where He turns a legal scholar’s question into a lesson on not arbitrarily deciding who one’s neighbor is but instead becoming a neighbor to all. This requires concrete deeds that help remedy the specific needs of one’s neighbor. Love must be visible and tangible.

The parable presents the basic decision we must make to transform and rebuild our culture from one that distorts an understanding of human dignity and service to neighbor to one that wholly defends and respects human life from conception to natural death. “Any other decision,” says Pope Francis, “would make us either one of the robbers or one of those who walked by without showing compassion for the sufferings of the man on the roadside” (Fratelli Tutti, 67). 

The Holy Father goes on to note that the parable “shows us how a community can be rebuilt by men and women who identify with the vulnerability of others, who reject the creation of a society of exclusion, and act instead as neighbors.”

The fact that human life is sacred, and that each human being has dignity, provides a basis for our response. “Love after all can never be just an abstraction. By its very nature, it indicates something concrete: intentions, attitudes, and behaviors that are shown in daily living” (Misericordiae Vultus, 9). The Samaritan was a true neighbor to the injured man. He took it upon himself to care for him, see to his need, and help him recover. He served and respected him without attracting attention to himself.

Undoubtedly, because of its lost sense of the sacredness of human life, contemporary society will continue along its path unless something or someone acts upon it. That something or someone is you and me.