by Albert Holtz
If Christ taught us about the compassion of our Father through parables, he showed his own compassion by performing miracles. Jesus was “moved with pity” to cleanse a leper in Mark 1:41 and to give sight to a group of blind men in Matthew 20:32–34. At the sight of the bereaved widow of Naim, who was about to bury her only son, “he was moved with pity [splanchnizomai] for her and said to her, ‘Do not weep’ “ (Luke 7:13). The miracle of the loaves and fishes began with Jesus calling his disciples to him and saying, “I have compassion [splanchnizomai] for the crowd, because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat” (Matthew 15:32). In all of these stories Jesus’ compassion moved him to immediate and decisive action: immediately he cleansed the lepers; immediately he raised the young man from the dead; he responded immediately to the hunger of the crowd by feeding them with the miraculous loaves and fishes.
The gospels, then, show us both God the Father and God the Son being deeply moved at the sight of our human suffering. This idea that our God is overflowing with compassion and is moved in his deepest being by human suffering could have been a special comfort to me that afternoon as I was walking along that road through the woods. Unfortunately it would be a year or so after his death before I made the connection between that odd Greek word and how God must have been suffering terribly alongside Bob and us the whole time.
We paused at a clearing where another scenic overlook offered a view that extended more than twenty miles to the east to Brooklyn and Staten Island, and stretched far to the north to include most of Manhattan Island and to the south past Elizabeth and Linden. The view was entrancing mostly, I think, because of the wonderful sense of perspective it gave, letting us actually see how all the different cities and landmarks related to one another. The Verazzano Narrows Bridge, straight ahead, connected Brooklyn with Staten Island, and the rainbow-shaped Bayonne Bridge connected Staten Island with Bayonne, New Jersey. Closer to us stood the buildings of downtown Newark and the runways of Newark Airport, and between them and Manhattan was the empty space of the New Jersey Meadowlands. We turned away from the view and started walking again.
As my brother’s death grows more distant in time, I’ve come to gain a lot of perspective on the experience and am able to see how so many of the events back then are interconnected. One thing that has been put into perspective is my anger at God. Looking back now I’m sure that the Lord understood and forgave my “silent treatment,” and was patiently suffering with me and trying to help me get through that difficult time of grieving. In fact, I can now see that our relationship grew stronger because of my quarrel with God.
My hiking partner glanced at his watch and said, “Okay, vespers is in an hour and a half; we’ll be okay if we just keep moving.”
He was still calm and relaxed. I was still angry. And God? Well, I suppose the God of compassion was walking alongside me and feeling my pain—and perhaps getting ready to respond with a healing miracle.
Reflection
1. When or where have you experienced God’s compassion and pity? Was it through another human being or in some other way?
2. The Good Samaritan of the parable is “moved with compassion” at the sight of the injured man and then acts on those feelings to take care of him (Luke 10:33–34). We become Christ-like not by feeling compassion for a needy neighbor, but by doing something to help that person. When are your feelings of compassion most likely to move you to help someone? When are such feelings more likely to remain just feelings?
Sacred Scripture
Some other passages where splanchna, “compassion” appears are Mark 6:34, 9:22; John 11:33; and Col 3:12.
Rule of Benedict
[The abbot] is to imitate the loving example of the Good Shepherd who left the ninety-nine sheep in the mountains and went in search of the one sheep that had strayed. So great was his compassion for its weakness that he mercifully placed it on his sacred shoulders and so carried it back to the flock (Chapter 27, “The Abbot’s Concern for the Excommunicated,” vv. 8–9).
12. Expanding My Heart
“THANKS FOR COMING, Father!”
“Happy to do it,” I said, and asked “How’re you doing? You okay?”
My fellow faculty member and I were standing facing his father’s open casket in a crowded funeral parlor.
“Yeah. I’m fine, at least for now,” he answered with a wry smile.
I stayed there with my arm around his shoulder, secretly wishing I could be somewhere else. Anywhere else. My friend had no idea how hard it was for me to be there. It was still the summer of Bob’s death, and everything brought back memories of his wake just six weeks before: the hushed murmur of voices, the cloying fragrance of the big floral arrangements, the displays of old photos, a homemade card with a childish crayon drawing and “I love you Grandpa” printed in big block letters.
My eyes started to fill with tears, so I hurriedly blurted out, “Well, listen, I guess I better be going. I promise I’ll be praying for you tomorrow morning, but I won’t be able to make it to the funeral mass.”
As I gave my colleague a parting hug, I had a rather un-priestly thought: “Thank God I can’t be at the funeral!” This quick visit to the wake had been hard enough. For the past six weeks since Bob died I’d been in a wilderness of pain worse than anything I had ever experienced before. My heart was numb with sorrow. Until this evening I had successfully avoided attending wakes because they would have been too painful, reopening the fresh wound of Bob’s death.
It would take me a few more weeks before the tide of suffering receded enough that I could really start caring once again about other people’s problems, especially their grief. Quite understandably, I felt that I had more than enough of my own sadness and sorrow to deal with without worrying about the sadness and sorrow of others.
There is a biblical image that describes the way I felt that evening: My heart was “too full.” It is based on the Greek verb chre, “to contain, to make room.”7 Jesus used this word when he saw that the minds and hearts of the Pharisees were completely filled with concern for the precise observance of legal minutiae and the detailed dictates of Jewish ritual prescriptions; he complained to them, “there is no place [chre] in you for my word” (John 8:37 NRSV). Their hundreds of ritual prescriptions and regulations had left no room in the Pharisees’ hearts for God to do anything new with them.
Once when some Corinthians were harboring bad feelings toward Paul, he wrote asking them to not let jealousy or pettiness crowd out Christian love; he pleaded “Make room [chre] for us. …” (2 Corinthians 7:2). The New Jerusalem Bible translates this request very beautifully as “Keep a place for us in your hearts.”
In the same letter Paul combines chre “ to have room” and the adjective stenos, “narrow,” into a single ominous word, stenochre.8 He uses it to describe certain Christians who were acting out of jealousy and envy; he accuses them of “narrowing their hearts.” A free translation of the passage might be: “We have spoken frankly to you, Corinthians, and we have opened wide our hearts. We have not narrowed our hearts to you, but you have narrowed [stenochre] yours” (2 Corinthians 6:11–12). Here the problem is not that they have no room in their hearts, but worse, that their hearts are actually getting smaller!
I kept working my way toward the exit at the back of the crowded funeral parlor, offering brief “hellos” and handshakes as I went. I moved as quickly as I decently could, and managed not to break into a run in my haste to escape.
My heart was definitely full of grief that evening, with little room left for other concerns. In fact I suppose you could say that the pain had even made my heart grow narrower.
But it turned out that this was only a necessary step in a process, as when a wound tightens and constricts as it starts to heal. The next months were a time of slow, imperceptible healing. In the end I found that somehow my heart had actually become wider, not narrower; it had been painfully, permanently stretched. As a result, when I attend a wake or a fune
ral today, it is as someone whose heart has been expanded by grief, someone who has experienced what the mourners are experiencing. Countless times since that awful night I’ve been able to help people who were facing the monster of grief. I’ve quietly stood beside them and whispered “I’ve been there, too.” I’ve reassured them that it was okay if their heart was completely full of sorrow at the time, and that I knew what it was like when pain made your heart shrink so that you didn’t care about anyone else’s problems. More than once I’ve whispered to someone, “Yup, I know what that’s like. Believe me!”
But back on that evening as I hurried toward the exit of the funeral home, my grieving heart was still too full, too narrow. But at least I’d shown up at the wake—maybe my heart was already starting to stretch a little.
For Reflection
1. Paul accuses some of his Corinthian readers of “narrowing their hearts” (2 Cor 7:2). Have you ever felt your heart “narrowing” toward someone? Were you aware of what was causing this? Were you able to overcome the impulse? If so, how?
2. Has your own experience of suffering made you more aware of the suffering of others, and perhaps more able to be of help to them?
3. Reflect on how Paul’s plea for an “open heart” might apply to broader areas such as ecumenism, the conservative-liberal debate, or the issues of race and immigration.
Sacred Scripture
The literal meaning of chre, “to contain, to make room for” can add to a deeper understanding of each of the following two passages:
1. “But he said to them, ‘Not everyone can accept [chre = make room for] this teaching, but only those to whom it is given” (Matt 19:11).
2. “The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to [chre = have room for] repentance” (2 Pet 3:9).
Rule of Benedict
But as we progress in this way of life and in faith, we shall run on the path of God’s commandments, our hearts expanded with the inexpressible delight of love (Prologue, v. 49, author’s trans.).
1. Rhma (hray´-mah), “1. utterance, word, 2. event, thing;” plural, rhmata. Pilate asks Jesus, “ ‘Do you not hear how many things they are testifying against you?’ But [Jesus] did not answer him one word” [rhma] (Matthew 27:14).
2. Saint Paul, for example, writes that “On the testimony of two or three witnesses a fact [rhma] shall be established” (2 Corinthians 13:1).
3. Years later, after Mary and Joseph found the twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple and brought him home with them, “his mother kept all these things [rhmata] in her heart” (Luke 2:51).
4. Episkeptomai (ep-ee-skep´-tom-ahee), from epi, “over,” and skop-/skep-, “to see,” means literally “to inspect,” then “to go and see someone, to pay a visit.” Saint Paul says to Barnabas, “Come, let us return and visit [episkeptomai] the believers in every city where we proclaimed the Lord and see how they are doing” (Acts 15:36).
5. The so-called Benedictus (Luke 1:68–79) gets its name from its first line in Latin “Blessed [Benedictus] be the Lord, the God of Israel.”
6. Splanchna (splangkh´-nah), bowels, affection, compassion. The verb splanchnizomai (splangkh-nid´-zom-ahee) means “to be moved with compassion, moved with
7. Chre (kho-reh´-o), “to contain, to make room.” John tells us that if he were to record all of Jesus’ deeds, “the whole world could not contain [chre] the books it would take” (John 21:25).
8. The verb stenochre (sten-okh-o-reh´-o) means literally “to make narrow,” and figuratively “to be constrained” (see 2 Corinthians 4:8).
CHAPTER FOUR
MY TURN WITH THE MONSTER
Cancer
When I heard that my brother Richard, ten years older than I, had been diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2000, I was of course worried for him, and couldn’t help thinking of Bob’s cancer and death. But deep inside I was also afraid for myself, because his illness put me into the “high risk” category for the same disease. So I dutifully went to the doctor to begin keeping a wary eye on the PSA level in my blood. The first couple of biopsies were negative. Then what I’d been fearing for almost three years finally happened: a biopsy came back positive. I had cancer.
The cancer had been detected early, was not an especially virulent type, and was easily treatable. I was fortunate to be able to have the new robotic surgery to remove my prostate, an operation which required just an overnight stay in the hospital. It was successful and within a few weeks the discomfort and the worst side effects of the surgery were past. My life returned to normal, and I’ve been cancer-free ever since.
Except for the initial shock, this did not turn out to be a particularly terrible ordeal; in fact, it was all over so quickly and with such minimal pain that I do not consider myself to have earned the proud title of “cancer survivor.” Yet I certainly discovered a lot about myself during this period. Thanks to what I had learned from dealing with the demise and resurrection of Saint Benedict’s Prep and with Bob’s death, I was able even as I was going through this experience to see it as a mysterious opportunity from God. All along, starting with the diagnosis and through the process of healing after the operation, I spent a lot of time praying and thinking about what the Lord might be trying to teach me. The following meditations offer some of my reflections and reactions during that time.
13. Calling for Help
I WALKED ACROSS THE PARKING LOT toward my car studying the little white business card in my hand. Filled in neatly with a blue ballpoint pen were the date and time of my follow-up visit with the urologist: I was scheduled to come back in ten days to find out the results of today’s biopsy, my third. A couple of minutes before, the doctor had told me very matter-of-factly, “It usually takes about a week to get the results back from the lab. So let’s make an appointment so I can see you in about eight or ten days.” He, like everyone else in the office, had seemed in no big rush to find out whether or not I had prostate cancer. Ten days, I thought to myself as I unlocked the car door, is an awful long time to wait for news that can change or even end your life! And this time for some reason I was worried about the results. But there was nothing to do now but wait. And of course pray for God’s help—which is what I was doing as I unlocked the car door and got into the driver’s seat.
Asking God for help comes naturally to most believers. It’s something most of us do all the time without giving it much thought. Every day we monks begin both Midday and Evening Prayer with the opening verse of Psalm 70: “O God, come to my assistance, O Lord, make haste to help me” (Psalm 70:1). Christians call for God’s help in their hymns such as “O God, our help in ages past,” and in dozens of formal orations, “Almighty Lord, we come before you seeking your divine aid. . . .” In fact the word “help” is so common in our prayer and worship that we hardly even notice that we’re saying it.
But, as I sat there praying that afternoon, I was intensely aware of what I was asking for: Help!
It’s actually quite an interesting word in the Bible. In the Septuagint (Greek) translation of the Old Testament the verb bothe, “to help”1 is a synonym for “save” or “redeem,” as for example in Psalm 37, “the Lord helps them and rescues them” (Psalm 37:40) where “helps” is simply another word for “rescues.” In Psalm 44, “to help” means “to redeem” when the psalmist prays, “Rise up, help us! Redeem us as your love demands” (Psalm 44:27).
In the gospels, the verb is used by troubled people who are approaching Jesus. A Canaanite mother whose daughter is being tormented by a demon “came and did [Jesus] homage, saying, Lord, help [bothe] me” (Matthew 15:25). A father whose son is possessed by a mute spirit pleads: “But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help [bothe] us” (Mark 9:22).2
As I started the engine, I thought of how the author of Hebrews encourages his readers to “confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help” (Hebrews 4:16). Well,
I said to myself, I guess that’s exactly what I’m looking for, “timely help.”
Then I remembered a striking image from the Acts of the Apostles that fit my situation perfectly. The ship carrying Saint Paul to Rome for trial was suddenly overtaken by a terrible storm that lasted for days. As towering waves began to smash down onto the vessel, threatening to break it apart, the desperate sailors “used cables to undergird the ship” (Acts 27:17). The Greek word for these cables that were holding the ship together is botheiais, literally, “helps.”3
I pictured myself about to enter some very stormy seas if the biopsy came back positive for cancer. I started to ask the Lord to wrap me round with some of those “helps,” and pull them good and tight around me to keep me from breaking apart under the giant waves.
I put the car in reverse and backed carefully out of the narrow parking space, kind of like a captain slowly guiding his ship away from a dock. The image of a storm-tossed vessel being held together by heavy ropes might not be the first one to come to mind for most modern Christians, but it worked for me that afternoon.
In fact, it’s still my favorite way of picturing God’s timely help.
Reflection
1. Read Acts 27:9-44, Luke’s vivid account of the storm at sea. Take your time. Imagine yourself as a frightened passenger below decks listening to the howling of the tempest and the ominous creaking of the ship’s timbers. Watch the leaks appear in the sides of the boat. Climb up onto the deck and feel it pitching and heaving; hear the wind howl as it hurls mountainous waves onto the ship for hours on end; watch as the panicking sailors wrap “helps” around the ship’s midsection in a desperate attempt to keep it from breaking apart. How do you feel when you see those cables?
