Compassion

14/01/2012
Fr. Jose Kaimlett

Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child. The first winner was:A four-year-old child, whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman, who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman’s’ yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When later his mother asked him what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy just said, ‘Nothing, I just helped him cry.

‘ To be able to ‘laugh with the laughing’ and to ‘cry with the crying’ is compassion. The very meaning of the word ‘com+patire’ is ‘to suffer with’.

Leave a comment