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The word compassion comes from two Latin words: cum meaning with and passio meaning to change, especially in the sense of suffering adverse change.
To be compassionate is to experience suffering or change alongside someone else – to listen to their cares and concerns and to share their joys and sorrows (The Characteristics of Jesuit Education n.43), to see the world through their eyes, to step into their shoes, to empathize.
Getting children to stop and notice how others are experiencing their lives, how they feel, and why they say and believe what they do, is an important aspect of parenting and teaching. Ultimately, it is what makes us kind and, at a deeper level, opens up the possibility of being loving through our just and merciful actions and forgiving words.
Jesus’ great commandment is “Love one another.” (John 13:34) The more we love others, the more we are truly human and most truly ourselves.
Love is something that is learned not by being taught but by having first experienced it for ourselves. Parents are the first and best teachers by what they say and do (Rite of Baptism n.77). The most important lesson they teach their children is love. It is by being loved that we learn to love.
Of course, it is easy to love those who love us. In speaking about love, Jesus throws out the challenge to take love deeper: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.’” (Matthew 5:43-44) This is where love becomes challenging. To love in this way is to love as God loves.
Schools build on the foundations laid by parents. By building up communities characterised by compassion and love, schools create the context in which children can learn and acquire these virtues for themselves. Schools can also show children people, living and dead, who exemplify these virtues and, conversely, show situations where their opposites have done terrible damage to people and society. In an educational context, we should take children to horizons of experience that may be very unfamiliar to them and give them perspectives which allow them to see the world as the compassionate and loving God sees it, “gazing down on the face and circuit of the earth and deciding to work the redemption of the human race.” (Spiritual Exercises n.106-7)
Parable of the Prodigal Son | Luke 15:11-32 (GNB)
Jesus said, “There was once a man who had two sons. The younger one said to him, ‘Father, give me my share of the property now.’ So the man divided his property between his two sons. After a few days the younger son sold his part of the property and left home with the money. He went to a country far away, where he wasted his money in reckless living. He spent everything he had. Then a severe famine spread over that country, and he was left without a thing. So he went to work for one of the citizens of that country, who sent him out to his farm to take care of the pigs. He wished he could fill himself with the bean pods the pigs ate, but no one gave him anything to eat. At last he came to his senses and said, ‘All my father's hired workers have more than they can eat, and here I am about to starve! I will get up and go to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against God and against you. I am no longer fit to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired workers.”’ So he got up and started back to his father.
He was still a long way from home when his father saw him; his heart was filled with pity, and he ran, threw his arms around his son, and kissed him. ‘Father,’ the son said, ‘I have sinned against God and against you. I am no longer fit to be called your son.’ But the father called to his servants. ‘Hurry!’ he said. ‘Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet. Then go and get the prize calf and kill it, and let us celebrate with a feast! For this son of mine was dead, but now he is alive; he was lost, but now he has been found.’ And so the feasting began.
In the meantime the older son was out in the field. On his way back, when he came close to the house, he heard the music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him, ‘What's going on?’ ‘Your brother has come back home,’ the servant answered, ‘and your father has killed the prize calf, because he got him back safe and sound.’ The older brother was so angry that he would not go into the house; so his father came out and begged him to come in. But he spoke back to his father, ‘Look, all these years I have worked for you like a slave, and I have never disobeyed your orders. What have you given me? Not even a goat for me to have a feast with my friends! But this son of yours wasted all your property on prostitutes, and when he comes back home, you kill the prize calf for him!’ ‘My son,’ the father answered, ‘you are always here with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be happy, because your brother was dead, but now he is alive; he was lost, but now he has been found.’