Psalms 1:
Happy indeed is the man
who follows not the counsel of the wicked:
nor lingers in the way of sinners
nor sits in the company of scorners,
but whose delight is the law of the Lord
and who ponders his law day and night.
He is like a tree that is planted
beside the flowing waters,
that yields its fruit in due season
and whose leaves shall never fade;
and all that he does shall prosper.
(This stanza is an analogy of the previous one of what an obedient man of God is)
A passage about how God gave us a choice between life and death:
Ecclesiasticus 14:14-17
He Himself made in the beginning and then left him free to make his own decisions. If you wish, you can keep the commandments, to behave faithfully is within your power. He has set fire and water before you; put out your hand to whatever you prefer. Man has life and death before him; whichever a man likes better will be given him.
What is compassion?
Compassion is to take the person as he is into the embrace of your love and your spirit. It is to enter into his imperfections and his sufferings. This is what mercy really is. If we do not have this kind of love for one another, we cannot have compassion for our divine spouse in his sufferings.
Instead, we shall enter into compassion with him in exactly the same measure that we are compassionate to one another. This is the greatest incentive to charity for one another that we could have. We have all experienced that when one is dear to us suffers, our first reflex emotion is, "Oh, if only I could bear this in his place?"
Likewise, Jesus saw our infirmities, our weaknesses, our little sufferings of futility, depression, frustration, lack of understanding from others and our own misunderstanding from others and own misunderstandings of others and he said, as it were, "Oh, if only I could take them on myself."
And he did.
He took them and carried them.
We should give those words back to him and say to him with our love and with our truth, "Oh, if only we could suffer it for you." If we do, he will allow us to enter into the mystery of the Passion. There is only one way for us to enter into the Passion and that is by way of compassion.
Each of our lives is meant to reproduce the Passion of Christ not by bloody sweats, not by nails but by suffering in these little unspectacular, unglamorous ways. This is our passion and it is only through this passion and this cross that we shall be brought to the glory of his Resurrection.
By Mother May Francis of Our Lady who was the abbess of the Poor Clare Monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Roswell, New Mexico.
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