Quotes about Compassion
God never intended most human beings to become philosophers or theologians, but God does want all humans to represent the very Sympathy and Empathy of God.
— Fr. Richard Rohr
The "adepts" in all religions are always forgiving, compassionate, and radically inclusive. They do not create enemies, and they move beyond the boundaries of their own "starter group" while still honoring them and making use of them.
— Fr. Richard Rohr
Authentic Christianity is not so much a belief system as a life-and-death system that shows you how to give away your life, how to give away your love, and eventually how to give away your death. Basically, how to give away—and in doing so, to connect with the world, with all other creatures, and with God.
— Fr. Richard Rohr
Just the existence of a single mentally challenged or mentally ill person should make us change any of our theories about the necessity of some kind of correct thinking as the definition of "salvation." Yet we have a history of excluding and torturing people who do not "think" right.
— Fr. Richard Rohr
Mercy unearned undeserved, unnecessary. If it isn't all of those it isn't Mercy. If you think people have to earn it, deserve it, or it is necessary to do it, you have lost the mystery of Mercy and forgiveness
— Fr. Richard Rohr
Whatever we are living through, we are in it together. It is not a contest between us. We are good by one another's goodness; we are sinners by one another's sin. In other words, both love and sin are highly contagious.
— Fr. Richard Rohr
Jesus himself always went where the pain was. Wherever there was human suffering, Jesus was concerned about it now, and about its healing now.
— Fr. Richard Rohr
What, then, does it mean to follow Jesus? I believe that we are invited to gaze upon the image of the crucified Jesus to soften our hearts toward all suffering, to help us see how we ourselves have been "bitten" by hatred and violence, and to know that God's heart has always been softened toward us.
— Fr. Richard Rohr
God, however, forgives even immature religion, and those who know God learn to do the same.
— Fr. Richard Rohr
If you want to be important, serve others. And if you want to be at the top, then slave to help everyone else. The
— Fr. Richard Rohr
Two thousand years after Jesus lived here, Christians still have a hard time accepting his upside-down world, in which we are expected to work for justice on behalf of others but not to demand or expect it for ourselves (Matthew 5:6,10-12). This is one of the hardest challenges of Jesus' message. It demands an expanded heart and mind.
— Fr. Richard Rohr
The point of the Christian life is not to distinguish oneself from the ungodly, but to stand in radical solidarity with everyone and everything else. This is the full, final, and intended effect of the Incarnation—symbolized by its finality in the cross, which is God's great act of solidarity instead of judgment.
— Fr. Richard Rohr