(…) we come to the great difference between compassion and pity. Pity is where we may love someone who is suffering, but that love is still in touch with our own fear. When we see the suffering of another, for example, when we see somebody dying, we cannot help but fear our own death. And if we are controlled by that fear, even unconsciously, we pity the person who is dying. “Poor thing,” we say. Where our love meets the suffering of the other person and escapes this dynamic of fear, breaks through this dynamic of egocentric fear in ourselves, we no longer think of the other suffering person as a poor thing; we think of them as ourselves. They are not separate from us. The meaning of compassion is that we recognise, that we mourn with those who mourn, we die with those who die, we suffer with those who suffer. This is the compassion of Christ, which has united all humanity in himself: When you gave a glass of water to a thirsty man, you have given it to me. What you did to the least of my little ones, you have done it to me. (Matthew 10:42; 25:40)
(Aspects of Love 2 by Laurence Freeman OSB )
