October 17
Have you ever seen someone hungry? Perhaps a baby crying out for food? How does that make you feel? If you feel concern for the baby and an urgency to help, you are experiencing compassion. Compassion means “to suffer with.”
Every human person has bodily needs that must be met by another. For example, a baby cannot feed herself. Can you think of another example? When you feel compassion, you (mercifully) experience another’s suffering in a personal way. This feeling of compassion moves us to action—we ask, how can I help? This is a work of mercy!
God created us this way. We understand how a hungry person may feel because we have felt hunger, too. In His command to love our neighbor as ourselves, He entrusts our care to one another. Understanding similar suffering (hunger and thirst) helps us to truly see our neighbor as ourselves. It is an exercise of the heart!
The Corporal Works of Mercy are ways in which we put the compassion we feel for another’s bodily suffering into action. When we feed the hungry and give water to those who thirst we are performing two of the corporal works of mercy. Check out our Corporal Works of Mercy Guide by downloading today for free!
I pledge to joyfully reawaken a culture of life in my domestic church!
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