Compassion

 

  Did you ever dream of being more like God? Well, there is a way for you and me and it is the only way. To be compassionate as our Heavenly Father is compassionate. I am always marvelling  at Jesus in action in the  Gospels. He is entirely devoted to people who need help. He can’t pass them by or turn a blind eye to them. He does what he can for them and identifies himself with their poverty and need. He refuses to tolerate unjust and inhuman systems. A story comes to my  mind.

 Two men were racing to catch a train in another part of the world.  The street was full of poor fruit dealers trying to sell their produce. The men in their haste to catch their train knocked over the stall of a young boy who watched in consternation as  his fruit went flying all over the street. One man continued running for the train regardless of what had happened. The other bent down picked up the damaged fruit wherever it had scattered, then opened his wallet and paid the boy for the whole lot.

 The young lad looked at him intently and asked the question – “are you Jesus?”

The startled man replied, “no but I am a follower of His”. To which the boy replied,  “I knew you must have been a relative of his.”

 That young lad had  grasped the core of Jesus’ message – “as long as you did it to the least of one of my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.”

 Isn’t it amazing in the parable of the last judgement  in St. Matthew’s Gospel  when all the nations of the world will gather before the Compassionate Jesus the decisive question will be have you lived with compassion, helping those who need your help? What we do to those who are hungry or thirsty, sick or in prison we do to God in Jesus.

 You’ll see in our photo a friend of ours meeting Mother Teresa of Calcutta.  She advised Miriam to return to Ireland and minister to the poor and needy at home. Taking her hand Mother Teresa  tapped out the five words of Jesus on Miriam’s five fingers: "you did it to me".

  Yes we can be like God if we are compassionate like our Heavenly Father in all the circumstances of our daily lives.