Pope urges us to use God’s language of compassion

Pope Francis recently invited the faithful to see reality clearly through the lens of compassion. He said that compassion enables us to open our hearts to see and understand the true situation of others so we can then act.

‘If compassion is the language of God, so often human language is that of indifference’, the Pope said.

‘How many times do we look away? By doing so we close the door to compassion.’

The Pope was reflecting on the gospel reading of Jesus’ encounter with the widow grieving the loss of her only son in the city of Nain and the parable of the multiplication of the loaves.

He said that compassion is the quality that enabled Jesus to see and understand the reality of the widow: ‘Compassion allows [us] to see reality … it allows us to take in and understand the true dimensions’.

The Pope also said that Jesus told the disciples to feed the crowd as a gesture of compassion but the disciples were selfish and only wanted food for themselves. He noted that the disciples ‘do not get their hands dirty’ and want to ‘leave those people to get on with it’ but compassion is when ‘we get involved in the problems of others’.

Pope Francis explained that compassion is not a feeling of pity, which is a sentiment you might feel if you saw a dog die on the road, but ‘an examination of conscience’ and we should ask ourselves whether we let the Holy Spirit guide us along the road to compassion.

The Pope was speaking during the homily at Mass in the Casa Santa Maria when he urged attendees to abandon closing themselves to indifference and instead speak God’s language.