More on Compassion

Source: legacyicons.com

A very fine response to the recent meditation on compassion from our own parishioner, John Dumancic. I thought to share this as a kind of extension/follow through on the theme of compassion:

_____

Dear Father Steven,

I had this thought while reading this reflection: both 'compassion' and 'sympathy' seem to have the same etymological meaning: com + passio in the Latin, σύν + πάθος (syn + pathos) in the Greek, 'to suffer with'. St. Paul commands us to 'rejoice with those who rejoice, and to weep with those who weep': this is having compassion, when we are so centered on our neighbor that we suffer and rejoice with them in their suffering and rejoicing. (And, with a broader reading of the word pathos, I think you could admit both of these in 'compassion'!) 

The Cross, then, in this reading, reveals God principally as the Compassionate One; God, who is not subject to pathos, nevertheless assumes all our suffering and rejoicing in the Incarnation of the Son: He carried all of our crosses to Golgotha, and by His suffering destroyed our suffering (the fruit of which we will reap in both this life and the ages to come). Or, if you will, by His death and resurrection, He made our suffering and our crosses to be a vehicle of glory, a pathway to eternal life. 'Blessed are they that mourn' — not because mourning is anything good in itself, but because they that love others must mourn, until the Lord 'wipes every tear from every eye.'

Sincerely,

John Dumancic