![]() ![]() Other times we cannot hide our sufferings and it is public for all to see, as was for example, the tribulation of the prophet Job. We all do battle with our lives, oftentimes this battle is an inward one and it can frighten us to ‘conspire’ with harmful responses. Like the heart-warming icon of the reconciliation of Saints Peter and Paul.Ĭompassion inspires hope, that feeling of trust and expectation, when everything around us might seem dark. I want for us to be part of each other’s redemption. I will stay with you, and if need be when that time arrives, I will share in your suffering and I will be there for you. A truth which this inspirational young soul, who lost her life in Columbine far too soon, learnt early in her growing years. “Compassion is the greatest form of love humans have to offer” (Rachael Joy Scott). This is what the traditional words of the marriage vow: “or better, for worse… in sickness and health”, are meant to convey. It would be like building a house on unstable ground. If I have no compassion for you, then it stands to reason that my confession of love will not stand, it will not hold up. ![]() Love itself presupposes the movement of compassion for to begin with, love proceeds from a “strong affection”. It is a “sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it.” Compassion from Middle English: via Old French from ecclesiastical Latin compassio(n- ), from compati ‘suffer with’. This is probably my favourite word: compassion. Here I would like to stop on a word which if we should stay to consider it in all of its wonder and implication, would bring us to tears. To reveal profound practical realities once broken free from their etymological shell. And then there are others, the same beautiful and resonant, which go even further. There are words which not only sound deliciously beautiful, but which also carry a deeper and more revealing resonance. “With the afflicted be afflicted in mind.” (Saint Isaac the Syrian) “Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us.” (Eric Hoffer) “How much can we ever know about the love and pain in another heart? How much can we hope to understand those who have suffered deeper anguish, greater deprivation, and more crushing disappointments than we ourselves have known?” (Orhan Pamuk) Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.” (Pema Chödrön) Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. “Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.” (Henri J.M. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. “Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. ![]()
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