Jesus and Compassion: Open Eyes & Soft Hearts

The small Eastern Arkansas town where I grew up experienced racial tensions throughout the ’60s and ’70s. The years I remember most were 1967 through ’69. Amid boycotts and marches, a parishioner of our church became one of the lone white faces in the protests for equal justice. Each day as Mary (not her real name) eagerly and passionately joined the day’s fight for African Americans to be seen and heard, she received verbal and physical threats from white citizens, many from her own St. Francis of Assisi Parish family. Our pastor, the late Father Joseph Biltz, not only supported Mary with his own engagement in the marches, he even offered our church as a place to rest and sleep for the protestors. When a reporter asked Mary how she found the courage to walk in the boycotts and protests, her answer was simple and concise: “Catholic Compassion.”

In her book, Boundless Compassion, Sr. Joyce Rupp, O.S.M., says that when our attitude includes mindfulness of another’s suffering without bias, our responses can begin to include the practice of compassion. By definition compassion is a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering. Notice the words “without bias” and “a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.”

Compassion is not the same as pity. It’s not about feeling sorry for someone’s misfortune and then moving on. No, it includes such a deep and personal feeling for the other, the heart desires a movement or action to remove the suffering altogether. Jesus was deliberate to show us what compassion looks like compared to other responses to suffering.

“As they were leaving Jericho, a large crowd followed him. There were two blind men sitting by the roadside. When they heard that Jesus was passing by, they shouted, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” The crowd sternly ordered them to be quiet; but they shouted even more loudly, “Have mercy on us, Lord, Son of David!” Jesus stood still and called them, saying, “What do you want me to do for you?” They said to him, “Lord, let our eyes be opened.” Moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes. Immediately they regained their sight and followed him” (Mt. 20:29-34).

The story here has the crowd ordering these two men who cannot see as the crowd does to be quiet. In other words, be invisible. Keep your mouths shut. Don’t mess with our status quo here.

Jesus, as he always does, turned their attitude of exclusion on its head. Why and how did he do this? Compassion. A movement of love in him was so strong he agreed to remedy their suffering. He did not ask if they were sinners. He did not ask where they went to the synagogue. He did the unimaginable. He reached out and gently, intimately, and physically touched them. He touched them! He wanted to show them he is one with them; that he is connected to them; that he loves them.

I am sure some in the crowd left Jesus that day. Their position of privilege caused them to see a different view than Jesus and the two blind men. Some though, probably with hearts open enough for conversion, were themselves moved with compassion after seeing Jesus physically and emotionally encounter the two blind men and they continued to follow him.

This story is one of many gospel examples of what it means to follow Jesus. When someone cannot see what I see, I am to move with compassion and touch them so intimately that they begin to see with new eyes, new lenses, with a new perspective.

Spiritual Practice for August

Who in my life right now has such a different perspective or “viewpoint” than I do, that I refuse to talk to them; refuse to have a relationship with them; I even judge them?

In what situations today am I the blind man? Am I willing to allow another to intimately touch me so I can be healed and converted?

Am I so hard-hearted that I will not even let Jesus touch me and heal me through conversion?

I encourage you to sit with these three questions and others that God places on your hearts. Have frank conversations with God and be sure to write down and journal your experiences of prayer.