Word of the Week

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Pity: Splacgchnizomai (Gk.):  meaning “to be moved as to one's bowels, hence to be moved with compassion, have compassion”. Along side this Greek definition of pity, is the Latin Pietas, meaning “piety, affection and duty”.

Compassion, literally meaning to “suffer with”, is to identify with the least of our brethren in their misery (CCC 2448). The call of compassion is a call to forgive. The Catechism of the Catholic Church beautifully reminds us that pardoning our brothers and sisters in Christ is a participation in the Life of the Holy Spirit: “It is not in our power not to feel or to forget an offense; but the heart that offers itself to the Holy Spirit turns injury into compassion and purifies the memory in transforming the hurt into intercession” (CCC 2843).  The faithful Christian must always be associated with Christ in prayer reach the heights of compassion and forgiveness (CCC 2844).

The term pity is seen in Sacred Scripture over 50 times. The aforementioned Greek rendering of pity can be found 12 times in the New Testament, all in the synoptic Gospels. The Old Testament vision of pity, often linked with the Hebrew understanding of mercy, is associated with God delivering His people from oppression (Ex.3:7). The NT vision of pity speaks to the “guttural” place of our being. The Greek Splacgchnizomai, can be described as the seat of emotion. Carefully reading what the word actually means in the Greek, you can begin to appreciate what Matthew, Mark and Luke all want to convey, that Christ’s love is drawn from the deepest place of his being, ‘his bowels’. Thus, we can now appreciate that when Christ is moved with pity, He cannot help but translate it into action. Christ’s seat of emotion is charged with truth in love as he seeks to reconcile us back to the Father. Christ’s pity evolves into care and ultimately favorable standing with God. Aside of the Good Samaritan (Lk.10:33), Splacgchnizomai is a term that is exclusively used for God’s divine compassion (Mt.14:14, 18:27, 20:34; Mk.1:41).

Do you often get that “gut feeling” to do the right thing, or that “intense emotion” that moves you to “go the extra mile”.  This “sixth sense” ought to constantly drive us to help the people of God in their time of difficulty. With the proper Christian context, we can have a better appreciation for our human instinct and the manner in which it should cater to building up the Body of Christ. Moreover, our participation in Christ’s compassion for both the material and spiritual poor must always be rooted in building up the individual in Truth. Not to be mistaken for the pity that is regularly linked with superiority and insincerity, Christ’s example of extending pity reminds us that we are ambassadors of Christ only if  we communicate his life and love as it was lived and shared here on earth.

“Let us bring love and compassion to win the world, to bring the world the gospel of Christ”

--Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

Primary Texts Consulted

•  Catholic Bible. Suggested trans. Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition.   Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Edition, 1997.

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