WORD 2day: Saturday, Fourth week in Ordinary time
"An understanding heart to guide God's people", is what Solomon asks of the Lord... and that is what he was given! We see Jesus, who understood the tiredness of his apostles and counselled them to relax. We see Jesus looking at the people and understanding their need, their thirst, their yearning for life... he was filled with compassion!
Compassion, which comes from com-pati (latin), to have the same feeling as someone, is basically an understanding of the other! When someone next to me is undergoing a crisis, when someone in my vicinity is going through a suffering, when persons in front of my eyes are experiencing a situation that stifles their lives... can I really feel with them, can I really suffer with them? That would be compassion! That is the sensibility that Jesus exhibits, that is the sensibility that Christ requires of us, if we have to call ourselves Christians!
A compassionate person alone can be a person of God. When I feel depressed, when I feel oppressed, when I feel spent, when I feel exploited, when I feel angry, when I feel disappointed, only a person with compassion can feel exactly what I feel. The person becomes a person of God, when the person feels what I feel and take me to where God wants me to move on. Yes, compassion is crying with those who cry and laughing with those who laugh, but it is not drowning with those who drown and decaying with those who decay! Compassion has to be a Godly presence of suggesting the right thing at the right time!
Compassion is the quality closest to sanctity! To be Christ-ians, we cannot but be compassionate; like Solomon, let us ask the Lord, and the Lord will grant us a heart that is wise and understanding, loving and compassionate.