Quotes About Compassion

As brother stands by brother in distress, binding up his wounds and soothing his pain, so let us show our love towards our enemy. There is no deeper distress to be found in the world, no pain more bitter than our enemy's. Nowhere is service more necessary or more blessed than when we serve our enemies.

The brother is a burden to the Christian, precisely because he is a Christian. For the pagan the other person never becomes a burden at all. He simply sidesteps every burden that others may impose upon him.

In total reality, he comes in the form of the beggar, of the dissolute human child in ragged clothes, asking for help. He confronts you in every person that you meet. As long as there are people, Christ will walk the earth as your neighbor, as the one through whom God calls you, speaks to you, makes demands on you.

Not until one person desires to keep his own bread for himself does hunger ensue.

The figure of the crucified invalidates all thought which takes success for its standard.

The worse the evil, the readier must the Christian be to suffer it; he must let the evil person fall into Jesus' hands.

We have to learn that personal suffering is a more effective key, a more rewarding principle for exploring the world in thought and action than personal good fortune.

And that is the wonder of all wonders, that God loves the lowly…. God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches right in. He chooses people as his instruments and performs his wonders where one would least expect them. God is near to lowliness; he loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.

But I'm afraid I'm bad at comforting; I can listen all right, but I can hardly ever find anything to say.

Through the medium of prayer we go to our enemy, stand by his side, and plead for him to God.

Contrary to all my own opinions and convictions, Jesus Christ will tell me what love toward the brethren really is.

To make a start, it should give away all its property to those in need. The clergy must live solely on the free-will offerings of their congregations, or possibly engage in some secular calling. The church must share in the secular problems of ordinary human life, not dominating, but helping and serving.

God does not love some ideal person, but rather human beings just as we are, not some ideal world, but rather the real world.

From now on there can be no more wars of faith. The only way to overcome our enemy is by loving him.

Nothing can be more cruel than that leniency which abandons others to their sin.

The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. Just as love to God begins with listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them. It is God's love for us that He not only gives us His Word but also lends us His ear. So it is His work that we do for our brother and sister when we learn to listen to them.

Thus this spiritual love will speak to Christ about a brother more than to a brother about Christ.

The church is church only when it is there for others.

Human love is directed to the other person for his own sake, spiritual love loves him for Christ's sake.

Where is love more glorified than where she dwells in the midst of her enemies?

Non è l'atto religioso che fa il cristiano, ma la sua partecipazione al dolore di Dio nella vita del mondo.

Whoever despises another human being will never be able to make anything of him. Nothing of what we despise in another is itself foreign to us.

We break bread with the hungry[78] and share our home with them[79] for the sake of Christ's love, which belongs to the hungry as much as it does to us. If the hungry do not come to faith, the guilt falls on those who denied them bread. To bring bread to the hungry is preparing the way for the coming of grace.

83]So often Christians, especially preachers, think that their only service is always to have to "offer" something when they are together with other people. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking. Many people seek a sympathetic ear and do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking even when they should be listening.