Memorial of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Religious

 Lectionary: 213

When Jesus saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. 

If Jesus comes to us with the authority of God, he appeals to us with the compassion of a fellow human being. His heart, like any healthy heart, is moved with pity for the vast crowd who are like sheep without a shepherd. 

We understand that because our hearts are assailed many times a day by the needy around us. They are crying children and homeless refugees; they are isolated prisoners and terminally ill patients. A glance at the newspaper, television, or social media reveals millions of people in desperate need of compassion. 

Whatever we might think about Jesus as an ancient teacher and his uncompromising demands to turn the other cheek and go the extra mile, we must recognize a fellow human being whose heart is moved with pity. 

And then, learning of his suffering -- the betrayal of Judas, the denial of Peter, the flight of his disciples, his trial, scourging, and crucifixion -- we are moved again to compassion for this man. He is one of us, like us in all things but sin.

No other religion -- Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, etc -- claims to know God as a fellow human being. No other religion pulls at our heartstrings or arouses such sympathy for God as does Christianity. T.S. Eliot alluded to our God as an infinitely gentle, infinitely suffering thing. And particularly Catholicism with its sorrowful mysteries of the rosary, its stations of the cross, its cult of the Sacred Heart, and so forth. These devotions impel us to the sacraments where we meet the Lord physically, especially in the Eucharist. Many people have wept as they received the Sacrament. 

Our faith must continually remind us of Jesus's human nature. While we appeal to his divine authority, we also must appeal to his sympathetic heart. I might demand of an All-powerful God that he rescue me; but our faith teaches us to turn to Jesus, the man who suffered and died because I have sinned. We go with him to Gethsemane and listen silently, breathlessly, as he prepares to meet his tormentors. Compassionately, we might urge him to flee Jerusalem immediately! "For God's sake, save yourself!" But pitifully, we beg him to stay and undergo his passion. 

The Episcopal priest and poet George Herbert successfully described the pathos of our prayers to the God who is one of us: 

Redemption
BY GEORGE HERBERT

 

Having been tenant long to a rich lord,
    Not thriving, I resolvèd to be bold,
    And make a suit unto him, to afford
A new small-rented lease, and cancel th’ old. 

 

In heaven at his manor I him sought;
    They told me there that he was lately gone
    About some land, which he had dearly bought
Long since on earth, to take possessiòn.

 

I straight returned, and knowing his great birth,
    Sought him accordingly in great resorts;
    In cities, theaters, gardens, parks, and courts;
At length I heard a ragged noise and mirth
         
    Of thieves and murderers; there I him espied,
    Who straight, Your suit is granted, said, and died.