“What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

It’s not a casual question.
It’s not academic.
It is the question.

And the man who asks it already knows the answer:
“You shall love the Lord your God… and your neighbour as yourself.”

But then comes the real question — the one behind the question:
“And who is my neighbour?”

In other words: Where does mercy end? How far must love go?
Give me the limits. Define the boundary.
Tell me where I can stop caring.

And in response, Jesus tells a story.

But it is not a moral tale.
It is not simply a call to kindness.
It is a theological key to the mystery of salvation.
A portrait of Christ,
A revelation of the human soul,
And a defence of the Church and of the Catholic faith.

A man is going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.
He is not just any traveller — the Church Fathers are unanimous: this man is Adam. And in Adam, he is all humanity.

He is you and me.

Jerusalem is the place of divine worship — Jericho, the city of exile.
The descent is spiritual.
It is the fall of man.

He is attacked — robbed, stripped, beaten, and left half-dead.
This is not poetic flourish — it is doctrinal truth.

He is:

Robbed of grace, Stripped of innocence,

Wounded by sin, Alive in the body, but spiritually dead.

This is precisely what the Church teaches about original sin (CCC 404–405).
We are born wounded — not utterly depraved, but incapable of saving ourselves.

We cannot climb back to Jerusalem unaided.

Then come the priest and the Levite — both figures of the Old Covenant.
They see him. They pass by.

Why? Because the Law cannot save. The prophets cannot heal.
They can tell us what is wrong — but not restore what was lost.

This is a critical truth:
The Law can expose your wound, but it cannot bind it.
It can name your sin, but it cannot forgive it.

The priest and the Levite pass by.

And still the man lies bleeding.

We need a Saviour.

Enter the Samaritan.

Now here’s the twist: the despised outsider becomes the saviour.
Why? Because Jesus is telling us who He is.

He is rejected by His own. He is not recognised by the religious elite.
As Isaiah prophesied: “He was despised and rejected by men.” (Isaiah 53:3)

So the Samaritan is Christ —
– the one who doesn’t walk past,
– who enters into our condition,
– who binds our wounds.

And how does He heal?

With oil and wine — signs of the sacraments.

This is no accident. Jesus is revealing how salvation works.

Oil represents the Holy Spirit — poured out in Baptism, Confirmation, and Anointing of the Sick.

Wine points to the Precious Blood — the Eucharist, the Sacrament of the Altar.

In this moment, Jesus is teaching — quietly but firmly — that salvation is not abstract. It comes through visible signs. Through sacramental grace.

The sacraments are not symbols.
They are not man-made rituals.
They are divine power, flowing from Christ, entrusted to the Church.

And the Samaritan does not just bandage the man.
He carries him.

He places him on his own beast.
He takes on the burden himself.

The Fathers saw in this the Incarnation.
Christ takes our nature.
Carries our weakness.
Bears our sins — even to the Cross.

And where does He bring him?

To an inn.
And again, this is not a poetic detail.
It is a theological claim.

The inn is the Church.

The Church is not a club for the clean.
It is not a museum for the holy.
It is a field hospital for the broken.

It is the place where the wounded are brought.
Where the sacraments are poured out.
Where healing happens.

And to the innkeeper — a figure of the priest, the shepherd — He gives two coins: the treasures of the faith — Word and Sacrament, Scripture and Tradition, the sacramental and doctrinal treasury of the Church.
And He says: “Care for him. I will return.”

Christ will return. And when He does, He will ask what we have done with the grace we received.

So what does this mean for us?

It means this parable is not just a call to kindness.
It is a comprehensive defence of the Catholic vision of salvation.

It teaches:

The fallen nature of man, The insufficiency of the Law alone,

The identity of Christ as Saviour, The necessity of the sacraments,

The healing mission of the Church, And the urgency of Christ’s return.

It answers every major Protestant objection:

“Why do we need sacraments?” — Because Christ uses oil and wine.

“Why do we need the Church?” — Because the wounded are brought to an inn.

“Isn’t faith alone enough?” — Not if you’re half-dead and can’t walk.

“Isn’t Scripture enough?” — No, even the Scriptures (the two coins) are entrusted to the innkeeper, the Church.

And then Jesus says: “Go, and do likewise.”

That is not a vague suggestion.
It is a commissioning.

Because the world today is full of the half-dead:

Robbed by false ideologies,

Wounded by sin,

Passed over by politics, philosophy, and even religion.

And we — the Church — know where healing is found.

We know:

That Christ is the only Saviour,

That the sacraments are the means of grace,

That the Church is the inn where healing continues,

And that He will return.

So how can we remain silent?

This is not the time for comfortable religion.
This is not the time to be spectators of a wounded world.
This is the time to evangelise — boldly, joyfully, unapologetically.

To speak His name. To offer His mercy.
To bring the wounded to the inn — the Church — and to say:
“Here is where you will be made whole.”

To evangelise is to bring the broken to the only One who can heal.
It is to offer what we ourselves have received:
– Mercy when we did not deserve it,
– Grace when we could not earn it,
– Truth when we were lost in lies.

So when Jesus says, “Go, and do likewise,”
He is sending us out as witnesses.

We do not need to be perfect.
We only need to be faithful.
To show the world the same Christ who found us bleeding on the road,
and carried us home.

Let us go, then —
Not as bystanders, but as evangelists.
Not as cultural Catholics, but as apostolic ones.
Let us proclaim Christ,
Offer the sacraments,
And bring the wounded home to the Church.

We Catholics have been given what the world needs:

Sacramental grace

Doctrinal truth

A Church that is Christ’s own Body

So let’s not be ashamed of our faith.

Let’s not apologise for being Catholic.

Let’s show, in word and in deed, that the fullness of healing is found here —
in Christ, through His Church, by His sacraments.

So go. Don’t hide your Catholic faith — proclaim it, confidently.
Not as your opinion, but as the truth that saves.

And when Christ returns — and He will — may He find you not standing at a distance, but serving with love, bringing others to the grace He gave to you.