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) So our love of self, that we learn through the stillness of meditation, leads us on directly and naturally to love of others. But then, as we learn to accept the relationships of our lives as the sacred grounds of our lives and the sacraments of divine life, as we learn to live relationships with others, we have to learn also the human skill, the human art, of withdrawing our projections from them, if we are to love them. To love others, like loving ourselves, is about letting the other be who they are.
( Aspects of Love 2 by Laurence Freeman OSB )
