Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.” (Donald P. McNeill, Douglas A. Morrison, and Henri J. M. Nouwen, Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life (New York: Image Books, 1983), 3-4.
Joyce Rupp in her book Boundless Compassion: Creating a Way of Life suggests that in today’s society it often seems as if cruelty is more extensive than kindness. Would you agree with Rupp’s assertion? Where do you bear witness to compassion? How are you met with compassion?
Broken, wounded, violent, divisive, fearful – these are some descriptors of our current global situation. Our world stands in desperate need of compassion – for compassion to be activated. The world and our wounds will not heal without it. Rupp writes, “Only with compassion at the core of humanity’s lived experience will we be able to approach one another with true respect and dwell in peacefulness.”
Let us pray: Give us compassion and humility in our hearts O God. Let us be kind, gentle, generous, loving, and giving wherever we go. Amen.
Holding you in prayer as God enfolds us with compassion,
Kara