Be Compassionate!

       Life has taught us that when people live together, there is bound to be conflict and strife. But life has also taught us that our strength is not in adversity but in how we are able to rise above the vicissitude of life and still hold our heads above the waters of tribulations, stress and traumatic experiences.  The word compassion is derived from the Latin words pati and cum, meaning “to suffer with”. Being compassionate means bearing the burden of my brothers and sisters and feeling with them their pain, sorrow and stress. Not to be burdened by those pains but to facilitate the healing process through empathic response to them.  No wonder Christ exhorts us to “be compassionate as your Father is compassionate”. This command does not state something we had already known but had forgotten, but it is a call that goes right against the grain, that turns us completely around and requires a total conversion of heart and mind. This is the invitation to love unconditionally and to feel one with the other utterly. God’s way of being compassionate is His willingness to take the form of a slave and to live among us, to share our pains, our isolation and our hurts. Through God’s willingness to share our lives, He gives us hope and made it possible for us to live meaningful lives. It is this kind of compassion that we must extend to one another.

Our sharing in the brokenness of our brothers and sisters means we are willing to enter with them into their problems, their confusions and their questions. It means the ability to offer them an alternative to their pains. It means we are willing to listen with both ears and heart so that we can truly hear what is being said and understand it completely without judgment or condemnation. Compassion can never coexist with judgment, because judgment creates the distance, the distinction, which prevents us from being with the other.

This then is one of the lessons of life and it is also the lesson of Christ: to be kind, compassionate and loving will help us create a better world for ourselves, for our friends and for our families.