Becoming Good Samaritans: Accompanying those who suffer

By Bishop Peter F. Christensen

Each year we celebrate May as Mental Health Awareness Month. Our diocesan Mental Health Team under the auspices of our Marriage and Family Life Office will be hosting a Mental Health Workshop with the theme, The Journey to Becoming a Good Samaritan. To kick off Mental Health Month, this event will be held at Holy Rosary Catholic Church Parish Hall on Friday, May 1 and Saturday, May 2.

As your bishop, I want to encourage you to consider attending this workshop. As I have traveled through our diocese over the years, it is clear to me how important it is for people of faith to seek the needed balance between mind, body and spirit. Our mental health is crucial for our overall wellbeing as persons made in the image and likeness of God.

Bishop Peter F. Christensen

The bishops of the United States have also reminded us of this important truth. As the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has affirmed:

“Nobody and nothing can alter or diminish your God-given dignity. You are a beloved child of God, a God of healing and hope.”

Recently, Pope Leo XIV in his address on the 34th World Day of the Sick celebrated on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes (February 11), spoke about the compassion of the Samaritan: loving by bearing another’s pain.

World Day of the Sick explicitly calls the Good Samaritan “essential for rediscovering the beauty of charity” and “the social dimension of compassion,” especially toward all who suffer. The pope emphasizes the need for us to slow down, draw near, and offer presence. This sums up in many ways what Catholic mental health ministers do—slow down, draw near and offer presence to someone in need.

The pope writes:

“We live immersed in a culture of speed, immediacy, and haste—a culture of ‘discard’ and indifference that prevents us from pausing along the way and drawing near to acknowledge the needs and suffering that surround us.”

The pope continues:

“Love is not passive; it goes out to meet the other. Being a neighbor is not determined by physical or social proximity but by the decision to love.”

Compassion, in this sense, implies a profound emotion that compels us to act. It is a feeling that springs from within and leads to a committed response to another’s suffering. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, compassion is the defining characteristic of active love; it is neither theoretical nor merely sentimental but manifests itself through concrete gestures.

“In responding to mental health struggles, we are called to become Good Samaritans—slowing down, drawing near, and accompanying our brothers and sisters with compassion, dignity, and hope.”

This vision of Christian compassion has been emphasized repeatedly by the Church’s shepherds. Pope Francis, reflecting on the same parable in Fratelli Tutti, reminds us that the Good Samaritan represents the antidote to what he calls the “globalization of indifference.” In the face of suffering, we cannot simply pass by. Instead, we are called to stop, see, draw near, and care.

Presence itself can be healing. Pope Leo XIV notes that the Samaritan “stopped, approached the man, and cared for him personally.”

However, we don’t do this work alone. One of the major reasons we gather together for a workshop, like the one coming up on May 1–2, is to strengthen one another. The Samaritan himself employed an innkeeper who helped care for the hurting man.

We have all had experiences in life when the compassion of the Samaritan and the innkeeper was discovered in other family members, neighbors, health care workers, those engaged in pastoral care, and many others who stop along the way to draw near, heal, support and accompany those in need. By offering what they have, they give compassion a social dimension, and we are not alone in this work.

I encourage you to adopt the Samaritan spirit—one that Pope Leo says is “welcoming, courageous, committed, and supportive,” rooted in our union with God and our faith in Jesus Christ. Enkindled by this divine love, we will surely be able to give of ourselves for the good of all who suffer, especially our brothers and sisters who are experiencing mental health struggles or mental illness.

As you consider attending this upcoming workshop, I encourage you to be like the Good Samaritan when confronted by someone in need. Look to see the whole person in front of you, and draw near in these situations rather than distancing yourself. Jesus entered into our human mess, and we should be willing to help enter into the struggles of others.

Let your compassion become active—feel, bind, carry, and support as you can. For those engaged in mental health caregiving, this becomes a chance to listen without judgment, help someone access therapy or needed resources, and demonstrate your steady presence in their lives. Mental health ministry blends pastoral support—prayer, the sacraments, and community—with accessible professional care, never placing them in opposition.

Remember that the Samaritan involved the innkeeper. Caregiving requires shared responsibility, helping us avoid the burnout that comes from carrying wounds alone.

May this workshop help all of us grow in the Samaritan spirit—so that, as a diocesan family of faith, we may recognize Christ in those who suffer and become instruments of His healing presence for those facing the challenges of mental illness and mental health struggles.

Scan the QR code below for more information

on the Marriage and Family Life’s

Mental Health Workshop

Or click on the link: https://www.dioceseofboise.org/event/mental-health-workshop