Quotations on the Theme of Compassion
Euripides (480-406 B.C.):
To generous souls, every task is noble.
From EarlyChurch Fathers, dated 2nd Century A.D.:
For Christians cannot be distinguished from the rest of the human race by country or language or customs. They do not live in cities of their own; they do not use a peculiar form of speech; they do not follow an eccentric manner of life . . . Yet, although they live in Greek and barbarian cities alike, as each man’s lot has been cast, and follow the customs of the country in clothing and food and other matters of daily living, at the same time they give proof of the remarkable and admittedly extraordinary constitution of their own common wealth. They live in their own countries, but only as aliens. They have a share in everything as citizens, and endure everything as foreigners. Every foreign land is their fatherland, and yet for them every fatherland is a foreign land. They marry, like everyone else, and they beget children, but they do not cast out their offspring. They share their board with each other, but not their marriage bed . . . They busy themselves on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven. They obey the established laws, but in their own lives they go far beyond what the laws require. They love all men, and by all men are persecuted. They are unknown, and still they are condemned; they are put to death, and yet they are brought to life. They are poor and yet they make many rich; they are completely destitute, and yet they enjoy complete abundance. They are dishonored, and in their very dishonor are glorified; they are defamed, and are vindicated. They are reviled, and yet they bless; when they are affronted, they still pay due respect. When they do good, they are punished as evildoers; undergoing punishment, they rejoice because they are brought to life . . . It is to no less a post than this that God has ordered them, and they must not try to evade it.
St John Chrysostom (A.D. 344-407), Silver-Tongued Orator and Preacher:
Charity is the scope of all God’s commands.
St Francis of Assisi (1182-1226), Founder of the Franciscan Order:
When there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance. Where there is patience and humility, there is neither anger nor vexation. Where there is poverty and joy, there is neither greed nor avarice. Where there is peace and meditation, there is neither anxiety nor doubt.
John Bunyan (1628-88), Preacher, Writer, and Author of Pilgrim’s Progress:
Professors of faith are great prattlers and talkers and disputers but do little of anything that bespeaks love to the poor or self-denial in outer things. Some people think religion is made up of words, a very wide mistake. Words without deeds is but a half-faced religion: “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep thyself unspotted from the world” (James 1:27). Again, “If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled (which are very fine words); notwithstanding ye give them not those things that are needful to the body; what doth it profit?” (James 2:15-16).
Bishop Francis Atterbury (1662-1732), Bishop of Rochester, England:
Should we grieve over a little misplaced charity, when an all knowing, all wise Being showers down every day his benefits on the unthankful and undeserving?
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Irish Clergyman and Satirist:
Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches to conceive how others can be in want.
John Wesley (1703-1791), Founder of the MethodistChurch:
I want you to converse more, abundantly more, with the poorest of the people, who, if they have not any taste, have souls, which you may forward in their way to heaven. And they have (many of them) faith and the love of God in a larger measure than any persons I know. Creep in among these in spite of diet and an hundred disgusting circumstances and thus put off the gentlewoman. Do not confine your conversation to genteel and elegant people. I should like this as well as you do; but I cannot discover a precedent for it in the life of our Lord or any of his apostles. My dear friends, let you and I walk as he walked.
General William Booth (1825-1912), Co-founder of the Salvation Army:
I hungered for hell. I pushed to the midst of it in the east end of London. For days I stood in those seething streets, muddy with men and women, drinking it all in and loving it all. Yes! I loved it because of the souls I saw. One night I went home and said to my wife: ‘Darling, I have given myself, I have given you and our children to the service of these sick souls.’ She smiled and took my hand and we knelt down together. That was the first meeting of the Salvation Army.
Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965), German Theologian and Medical Missionary:
Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.
Howard Thurman (1900-81), Minister, Educator, Civil Rights Leader:
The Work of Christmas
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and the princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flocks,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among brothers,
To make music in the heart.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983), Social Philosopher:
Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul; where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), Existential Philosopher:
The poor don’t know that their function in life is to exercise our generosity.
Archbishop Derek Worlock (1920-96):
I am my brother’s keeper, and he’s sleeping pretty rough these days.
John Berger (1926- ), Social Novelist:
The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied but written off as trash. The twentieth-century consumer economy has produced the first culture for which a beggar is a reminder of nothing.
Erwin W. Lutzer, Current Senior Pastor of Moody Bible Institute:
Christianity demands a level of caring that transcends human inclinations.
About Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997), Founder of Missionaries of Charity:
A young Brother came to Mother Teresa seeking advice. He wanted only one assignment, to work with the lepers. Mother told him that his vocation was not necessarily to work with the lepers. His vocation was to belong to Jesus, and because he belonged to Jesus, he could put his love for Jesus in action by service to the lepers.
“It makes no difference whether you are teaching university-level people, or whether you are in the slums, or just cleaning and washing or scrubbing, washing wounds, picking up maggots, all this makes no difference. Not what we do, but how much love we put into the doing is what concerns Jesus.”
A Prayer of Mother Teresa:
Eternal life, Father, is to know You, the one true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.
May we bring this eternal life to the poor, deprived as they are of all comfort, of material possessions; may they come to know You, love You, possess You, share in Your life, You who are the God and Father of men and of my Lord Jesus Christ, Source of all truth, and goodness and happiness.
Founding General Superintendent of the Church of the Nazarene Phineas F. Bresee (1838-1915)
The first miracle after the baptism of the Holy Ghost was wrought upon a beggar. It means that the first service of a Holy Ghost-baptized church is to the poor; that its ministry is to those who are lowest down; that its gifts are for those who need them the most. As the Spirit was upon Jesus to preach the gospel to the poor, so His Spirit is upon His servants for the same purpose.
General Superintendent John W. Goodwin, Church of the Nazarene (1920):
Pure religion always has and always will have its two sides: purity and service. To neglect service in the welfare of others is to demonstrate a lack of purity. Holiness people should be preeminent in social service. This is what chiefly characterized the EarlyChurch—their untiring service to bless their fellowmen and care for their widows and fatherless children.
Organizing Minutes of the Los AngelesFirstChurch of the Nazarene, Oct. 20, 1895:
The field of labor to which we feel especially called is in the neglected quarters of the cities and wherever else may be found waste places and souls seeking pardon and cleansing from sin. This work we aim to do through the agency of city missions, evangelistic services, house-to-house visitation, caring for the poor, and comforting the dying. To this end, we strive personally to walk with God and to incite others so to do.
Old Chinese Poem:
Go to the people,
Live among them,
Learn from them,
Start with what they know.
Build on what they have;
But of the best of leaders,
When their task is accomplished,
Their work is done,
The people all remark
‘We have done it ourselves.’