A valuable lesson on charity and compassion
A few months ago, because of a temporary physical disability, I attended a public sporting event in a wheelchair. I needed help to get to my viewing space, to get to the restroom and to and from the car. My husband, some friends we were traveling with and the guest services people at the venue all helped me in some fashion. It was a new experience for me. I have never been so dependent on so many others.
And I didn’t particularly like it. I have spent some time reflecting on that experience and what I was supposed to learn from it.
So, what did I learn? That experience changed my outlook on charity and compassion. I learned there is a difference between charity and compassion.
Most of us, I am certain, practice charity. We give to charitable causes. We help our neighbors. Charity is not an option but an essential part of who we are as Christians. Jesus taught us that to love God and to love our neighbor are the greatest commandments. That is not only intrinsic to Christianity but Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and other religions, too.
The people who helped me when I was temporarily disabled, I surmise, were acting out of love and concern for me. They were practicing charity. I was grateful to all of them for their charitable actions. But none of them were suffering with me.
Me, being the one in the wheelchair, had another perspective. I learned compassion.
I experienced the chal- lenges that some people face every day. I felt what it was like to be literally looked down upon. I became one with the suffering of others because I, too, even for a short while, faced the same suffering.
The word compassion means “to suffer with.” But it is more than that. Compassion is the sympathetic consciousness of another’s suffering with a desire to alleviate it. You feel another’s suffering. Compassion is not pity. Compassion is rooted in love. Pity is not. Pity is rooted in an air of superiority and futility. Compassion is rooted in the hope that something good will come from the shared suffering.
Henri Nouwen, the great Catholic writer and theologian, said it like this: “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.”
This week, Christians around the world will enter the season of Lent. Lent is traditionally a time of prayer, fasting and alms giving. Can we make it a time of compassion, too? Can we enter into the suffering of others and then work to alleviate that suffering?
Where do you see suffering? Is it in the migrants huddled at our border fleeing for their lives? Is it in the victims of sex trafficking? Is it in the mournful eyes of a parent who has just buried a child? Is it in the under educated who struggle in meaningless jobs? Is it in refugees huddled in tents half a world away? Is it with the terminally ill who know their life is drawing to a close?
When we join in another’s suffering with compassion, the suffering can be redemptive. When we share in the suffering of another, we bring a light into the pain and misery of that person’s life. We get a small glimpse of seeing another person as God sees that person.
As Lent begins, I hope you find ways to incorporate prayer, fasting and alms giving into your life. I invite you to take it further. I invite you develop compassion. I encourage you to suffer with the poor, the outcast, the lonely, the grieving, and the unwanted. Become weak with the weak, be vulnerable with the vulnerable and be powerless with the powerless. Cry, mourn and weep with others. Rest assured that this suffering you have shared with another can ultimately be redemptive.
The word compassion means “to suffer with.” But it is more than that. Compassion is the sympathetic consciousness of another’s suffering with a desire to alleviate it. You feel another’s suffering. Compassion is not pity. Compassion is rooted in love. Pity is not. Pity is rooted in an air of superiority and futility.
Terri Simon is a Roman Catholic lay person living in Newport News. She can be reached at simonta@ live.com.