Gospel of Matthew 5:4

It has been said that we can forget the times we have laughed with someone, but we cannot forget the times we have cried with someone. In this beatitude; “blessed are those who mourn,” the Lord evokes the need for compassion for all who suffer.

Jesus drives the lesson of compassion home so clearly and so explicitly that it must have knocked His listeners off their feet (Matthew 5:38-40). He pointed out that the source of compassion was not to be found in the law or in the courts. In Israel at that time, the law said that a debtor could be forced to give up his cloak and tunic, which pretty much depleted the wardrobe of the poor. Jesus said: “If anyone wants to go to law over your shirt, hand him your coat as well.” What Jesus was doing was extending compassion beyond the strict justice of the law because compassion must reach beyond resentment and vengeance in order to change unjust laws.

The lessons in Matthew, chapter five, are demanding: “When a person strikes you on the right cheek, turn and offer him the other.” And again, “Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him two miles.” It was a hard lesson for the Israelites to accept being pressed into service by the occupying forces of Rome, which had the power to make them carry arms or supplies a mile. Jesus said, “Go two.” No doubt, we would rather be given a set of rules to follow; demands to fulfill; then be stretched like this. When the demands of the law are met we feel that justice is done, and we can wash our hands and go about our own business. But, with compassion it is different. Compassion goes to the source of unjust laws; it reveals the hardness of heart behind the Jim Crow laws of the old south, the laws against the rights of the unborn, and so forth. Compassion is on the side of all people who are oppressed by unjust laws or circumstances.

Compassion knows no vacation for it is an attitude of the heart. It doesn’t sort out the unworthy or undeserving or pick and choose between family and stranger. Compassion if for everyone, for “the just and the unjust,” for pagans and believers alike. Compassion, Jesus tells us, is to be given as indiscriminately as rain from the heavens that falls on the “just and unjust” or as the gentle sun that rises on the “the bad and the good.” (Matthew 5:45)

Christ-like compassion is the special attribute of the Christian; it feels deeply for all who suffer.
“Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

Fr. Hugh Duffy

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