A person is merciful when he feels the sorrow and misery of another as if it were his own.

Conscience is always enlightened when sin is seen as hurting someone we love. No sin can touch one of God's stars or silence one of His words, but it can cruelly wound His heart. Once the Penitent understands this truth, he can see why he has such emptiness and desolation and his soul: he hurt the one he loves.

His words even imply that philanthropy has deeper depths than is generally realized. The great emotions of compassion and mercy are traced to Him; there is more to human deeds than the doers are aware. He identified every act of kindness as an expression of sympathy with Himself. All kindnesses are either done explicitly or implicitly in His name, or they are refused explicitly or implicitly in His name.

Under the guidance of the Spirit every trial enriches the soul... He best heals wounds who has felt a similar wound.

The porter who took my bag said to me: "Everybody knows you; it must be wonderful to be a bishop." And I said to him: "Suppose you had four hundred children and ten were very sick and five were dying. Would you not worry and stay awake at night? Well, that is my family. It is not as wonderful as you think.

The depth of a priest's compassion is the measure of his apostolic success.

We suffer from hunger of the spirit while much of the world is suffering from hunger of the body.

Always touched with sympathy for human infirmities, we bear the burden of nations in our hearts.

If we start (as we must) at the bottom of the ladder, having compassion on all men, nothing that happens to others is foreign to us. Their grief is our grief, their poverty our poverty.

One who cares for another assumes the weight of the other's condition on his own heart and bears it in love.

Once a man ceases to be of service to his neighbor, he begins to be a burden to him.

Healthcare expenses often wipe out families.