27th Week of the Year A – Monday 5.10.2026
Reflection Theme: Good Samaritan – “Who is my Neighbour?”
By: Rev. Fr. Fredrick Kiwanuka
Gospel Reading: Luke 10:25-37
Whatever his intentions may have been, thanks to the lawyer for questioning the Lord about our neighbour. Because of his question, the answer came in a most touching and instructive parable: “The Good Samaritan.”
The parable brings to our minds very vividly what real Christian charity is. Ultimately, it confronts us with the question of whether we, too, are good Samaritans.
We know about the law of love. We also know our sentence on the day of judgment will depend heavily on our charity to our neighbour.
And so we ought to ask ourselves: Are we usually “good Samaritans” to our neighbour, the aged, the sick, and the poor? Or do we pass by them quickly as though we didn’t notice they need help?
Rationalizing our lack of charity
Our indifference is not necessarily out of malice, but it often comes with a poor excuse. We tell ourselves:
We pile up these and other excuses to justify passing by.
Many so-called “good Catholics when listening to a sermon on our Lord’s Passion and cross, feel compassion and say to our Lord that they would do everything to receive His suffering. Our Lord gives them the test of their sincerity when He says to us, “As long as you did not do it for one of these least ones, you did not do it for me!
His “least ones, His hungry, His poor, are all around us within easy reach of any sincere Catholic today. It isn’t the amount you give or the time you devote to help and comfort the afflicted that counts most. It’s the sacrifice you make out of the blessing God gave you!
Even the poorest and busiest among us can find occasions when we can be of help to someone in need. We can and should all be good Samaritans.
We must help a man even when he has bought his trouble on himself, as the traveler had done. Any man of any tribe, nation who is in need is our neighbour. Our help must be as wide as the love of God.
The help we give must be practical and not consist merely in feeling sorry! No doubt the priest and the Levite felt a pang of pity for the wounded man, but they did nothing. Compassion, to be real, must issue in deeds!
What Jesus said to the scribe, he says directly to each of us today: “Go, you and do the same.”
“What a joy, O Lord, it should be to be channels of your love, to be the loving touch of your hands”
@ Christ the King Parish, Kampala
