7th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022
1 Samuel 26:7-23; Psalm 102; 1 Cor 15:45-49; Luke 6:27-38
Many, many moons ago, when I was based at the Diocesan Residential Youth Centre, the lay members of staff used to claim, tongue in cheek (at least, I think it was tongue in cheek) that I had only one homily, which went “compassion—cum passio—suffering with”. A few years later, on my first Sunday in St. Gregory’s, Preston, having spotted one of those former staff members in the congregation, I felt compelled to begin my homily by saying “There is someone in church who believes that I have only one homily. I am now going to prove them right”, because the Gospel on that day cried out for that selfsame homily, as does today’s Gospel.
“Be compassionate, as your Father is compassionate” we are instructed by Jesus. In one sense, the Psalm goes even further, stating not simply that God is compassionate, but that He is COMPASSION—that compassion is an aspect of His very nature.
How can this be? The Psalmist wouldn’t have known it, but God was to reveal Himself as COMPASSION, by becoming one of us in the person of Jesus, thus taking our human nature as His own, undergoing what we undergo, suffering what we suffer. Compassion is one of God’s greatest gifts to us because it is a sharing in His nature, a sharing bestowed on us in the Incarnation, the taking by God of our human nature, with all that this entails.
Sometimes the word “compassion” is devalued by being taken to mean “feeling sorry for”, but it is a far deeper reality than that. The same is true of the Greek equivalent “sun pathos” which comes into English as “sympathy” a word which also means “suffering with”, but which is generally reduced to that same concept of “feeling sorry for”—something experienced from outside. Hence, it is usually replaced, when we wish to express that sense of “suffering with”, by “empathy” (en pathos) literally “suffering in”.
That is the feeling, and the attitude, which Jesus demands of us. We must put ourselves in the other person’s skin, experience things from his/her point of view, as God, in the person of Jesus, put Himself in our skin, experiencing things from our point of view. If we have an enemy, we must walk in that enemy’s shoes, seeing things, as best we can, from that enemy’s viewpoint, not primarily to give ourselves a strategic advantage, but to understand why they behave as they do, what aspect of our common humanity is driving them.
Can a Ukrainian, indeed can we, be compassionate with Vladimir Putin, take on his skin, his mind, his soul? Can a Northern Ireland nationalist do the same for a committed unionist, and vice versa? This may seem to demand the impossible, yet it is the demand made of us by Jesus, the compassionate God, when He tells us uncompromisingly “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who treat you badly”. It is a demand which He Himself embodied to the full when He prayed “Father, forgive them,” on behalf of those apparently evil men who were crucifying Him. When He added “for they know not what they do”, Jesus demonstrated that He had entered into their mindset, understood what made them tick, become compassionate with them.
Such an attitude, such a response, is profoundly counter-cultural. You need only skim the internet, or glance at newspaper headlines, to note the venom spewed by so many on those with whom they disagree. If you were to visit certain self-styled Catholic media outlets—which I don’t advise you to do—you would be horrified by the hatred which some of them express for the Holy Father. “No compassion there” you might say, and you would be correct, but here’s the rub: you and I must be compassionate with them, must enter into their minds and hearts to understand what drives them, must do good to them, bless them, pray for them. Is this the most difficult Gospel passage of all? Possibly. Are we obliged to take it seriously? Definitely. Is compassion the most demanding of mindsets? It may be, but it is certainly the most Christ-like, and so, ultimately, the most rewarding.
