Villa La Paz Newsletter June 2022
Compassion-sorrow for the sufferings and troubles of another or others accompanied by an urge to help, deep sympathy
Webster’s New World Dictionary
Third College Edition
Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the 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.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
Unless you have suffered and wept, you really do not understand what compassion is, nor can you give comfort to someone who is suffering. If you have not cried, you cannot dry another’s eyes. Unless you’ve walked in darkness, you can’t help wanderers find the way. Unless you’ve looked into the eyes of menacing death and felt its hot breath, you can’t help another rise from the dead and taste anew the joy of being alive.
Takashi Nagai, an atomic bomb survivor and convert to Catholicism
from the book A Song for Nagasaki
I do not think the greatest threat to our future is from bombs or guided missiles I do not think our civilization will die that way. I think it will die when we no longer care, when the spiritual forces that want to make us be right and noble die in the hearts of men. Nineteen notable civilization have died from within and not been conquered from without. It happened slowly, in the quiet and dark, when no one was aware.
Laurence K. Gould
God and the little boy met at the seashore one bright Sunday afternoon and began to walk together.
“God,” said the little boy.
“Yes,” said God.
“In class on Friday Sister Margaret Mary spoke about compassion and how it differed from pity but I could not quite understand the difference,” said the little boy.
God replied, “The word compassion has its roots in two Latin words: com, which means together and pati, which means to suffer. It means that when we see someone who is suffering and have compassion for that person we enter into their suffering, that is, we literally take on their suffering to help them bear it. We die to ourselves to give the suffering person new life. Pity, on the other hand, implies that the person being pitied is inferior, or below the person who pities. Pity grows out of a sense of superiority and not solidarity with the person who suffers. Compassion grows out of the conviction that all are interconnected as all of you are my children. What affects one affects all.”
“Then how can we become compassionate? How do we so identify with a person that we can become one with them in their distress? How can we enter into solidarity with a person who suffers,” asked the little boy. “One does so by realizing that all have me as their father, that all are brothers and sisters of the same father and as such are reflections of my love. All are tabernacles in which I dwell, and as such radiate my love and goodness to one another,” replied God. “But,” said the little boy, “I don’t see you in others, especially in those I do not like.” “It sometimes takes a lifetime,” said God, “a lifetime of prayer.”
When we discern the sacramental principle in the world-the presence of God in every person and every place-then we can rejoice and celebrate the fullness of life and the joy of creation.
John Chryssavgis
from the book Creation as Sacrament
One must see God in everyone.
Saint Catherine Labouré
Indeed, without perseverance, without a conscious effort, without constant prayer, it is for most of us difficult, if not impossible, to see God in others. We first notice the externals of a person and if the externals are unpleasant we avoid interacting with that person. The panhandler, the homeless, the alcoholic, and addicted, those that need our love and concern the most, are rejected due to their appearance, demeanor and other disagreeable qualities. Our culture prizes and admires upward mobility: success, fame, admiration, wealth and assiduously avoids downward mobility which God practiced when He became one of us. He actively sought the marginalized, the poor, the rejected, those that his society considered worthless and unwanted. He demonstrated compassion for those whom His society would rather avoid and discard. His love was and is unconditional, not related to a person’s physical and emotional attributes, intelligence, ethnicity, religious beliefs, or cultural norms; and compassion requires an unconditional love, a love that penetrates a person’s externals to enter the person’s heart where God dwells.
Perhaps the best example of unconditional love and compassion is seen in our children. So many of our volunteers have remarked how our children help each other, how there is so little strife between them, how they genuinely want the best for each other. All have a physical ailment and each child tries to, in some way, make life more pleasant for their companions. Our Lord said that we must become like children if we are to enter the kingdom of heaven. He also repeatedly said that the kingdom of heaven is among us if love and compassion reign in our hearts.
I want to end this newsletter with a special prayer for peace. Our times are convulsed with wars and violence in various parts of the world. Through fervent prayer may the killing and violence end and God’s love and compassion triumph.
God of all humanity;
We pray for peace.
We pray that all families know safety and comfort, that children can live and play without fear, and that countries reach out to each other with understanding and mutual care.
We pray that leaders make global peace their united goal.
Send your Spirit to comfort those in despair and danger.
Bring healing to our troubled world which you have given us so freely.
May your Spirit strengthen us to work for peace.
We make this prayer in the name of the Prince of Peace.
Amen.
Jan Bantham
Reflection in website Living with Christ, April 19, 2022
We thank you for supporting our children. We love you and wish you God’s peace.
