Getting Involved In Others’ Lives

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

IF we really want to capture the heart of Christ, if we really want to have the same love he has for all of us, then we should train ourselves to get involved in the lives of others. That’s what Christ is showing us and is, in fact, commanding us to do so.

He, being God, not only became man, but also did everything to help all of us, giving such special attention to those most in need that he went to all the way to bear all our sins and conquer them with his passion, death and resurrection.

It definitely is not easy to do, given our wounded condition here on earth, prone to think and care only for our own life. But there’s always hope. If we would just open ourselves to God’s grace and do our best to do our part, slowly but steadily following Christ’s example, what may seem impossible can be made possible and practicable.

We obviously have to go through a certain process, going from one step to another, from one level to another. But as long as we persevere, we can indeed reach that ideal when we can share the lives of others and help them pursue the real goal of our lives. That’s when what is theirs—all their joys and sorrows, etc.—will also be ours in a happy “communion of saints” that is meant for us.

Thus, we need to develop the virtues of empathy and compassion that glue us together as a people, enabling us to enter into one another´s lives as we are supposed to do, edifying our sense of unity and solidarity despite the variety of our conditions and situations. And so, anything that undermines it undermines us as a people, as a society, as a family.

Lack of it leads to conflicts and acrimony, poisoning and weakening our social fabric. We need to be more aware of building up this important aspect of our lives, knowing its true nature and character, its authentic source of energy and its real goal. At this time, we cannot afford to be naïve about our need for empathy and compassion, properly understood.

Our initial problem is that many of us understand empathy and compassion more as an instinctive and emotional reaction, and nothing much else. When you see someone stumble and in pain, you immediately mirror his condition by vicariously feeling the fellow´s predicament yourself.

When you see a beggar in tattered clothes or an abandoned child, or when you read in the papers about the earthquake victims in some place, you automatically feel something like empathy or sympathy, depending on whether you felt with them or for them.

We are in need of mirroring one another´s conditions, since this is how we learn, grow and develop. Thus, the importance of physical, face-to-face encounters, and of being wary of our tendency to just keep to ourselves, limiting our relations with others in the level of intentions only.

Of course, we should be careful to avoid extremes—empathy and compassion either as only a physical and emotional thing or only as an intentional and disembodied affair.

Empathy and compassion are certainly part of our nature that indicates that not only are we individual persons, we are also social beings; not only are we spiritual and intellectual persons, we are also beings of flesh with feelings and emotions.

We need to respect, uphold and defend the requirements of each element that constitutes our being or nature. We have to understand that empathy and compassion have to draw their consistency from these constitutive elements that are properly ordered and pursued.

            Email: roycimagala@gmail.com