Be Compassionate like Your Father
In the story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-31), the Compassionate Father runs to greet his lost son who returns. He also went outside to greet his older son, who was still lost. The compassion of the Father is amazing, but we must also seek to be compassionate as well. Not just to have episodes of compassion but to have compassion be a way of life. I shared these three quotes from Isaac the Syrian in the homily:
Because God, with that compassionate knowledge of his, knew that if genuine righteousness were required of human beings, then only one in ten thousand would be found who could enter the kingdom of heaven, he accordingly provided them instead with a medicine suitable for everyone, namely repentance, so that on every day and at every moment there would be available to the man opportunity easily to be put in the right by means of the strength of this medicine: through compunction they would be able at any time to wash away from themselves every stain they might incur; they would be able to be renewed each day through repentance. How great are the means which our compassionate Maker has, in the wisdom of his divinity, provided us for the sake of our everlasting life, for it is his wish that we should be renewed each day and begin again with a virtuous change of will and a renewal of mind.
‘Blessed is the merciful man, for he shall obtain mercy’, not only in the hereafter, but also here in a mystical way. Indeed, what mercy is greater than this, that when a man is moved with compassion for a fellow man and becomes a partaker in his suffering? Our Lord delivers his soul from the gloom of darkness—which is the noetic gehenna— and brings her into the light of life, thus filling her with delight. . . . And when it is in your power to deliver the iniquitous man from evil, do not neglect to do so. I do not mean that if the affair is far removed from you, you should go and throw yourself into the work of this sort, for deeds of this kind do not belong to your way of life. If, however, the affair is placed directly into your hands and is within your power, . . . then take heed to yourself, lest you become a partaker of the blood of the iniquitous man by not taking pains to deliver him. . . . Instead of an avenger, be a deliverer. Instead of a faultfinder, be a soother. Instead of a betrayer, be a martyr. Instead of a chider, be a defender. Beseech God on behalf of sinners that they receive mercy.
At the door of your compassion do I knock, Lord. Send aid to my scattered impulses, which are intoxicated with the multitude of the passions and the power of darkness. You can see my sores hidden within me: stir up contrition— though not corresponding to the weight of my sins, for if I receive full awareness of the extent of my sins, Lord, my soul would be consumed with the bitter pain from them. . . . O name of Jesus, key to all gifts, open up for me the great door to your treasure-house, that I may enter and praise you with the praise that comes from the heart in return for your mercies which I have experienced in latter days; for you came and renewed me with an awareness of the New World.