to be . with

O thou Mother, Font of Love!
Touch my spirit from above, Make my heart with thine accord;
Make me feel as you have felt; Make my soul to glow and melt
with the love of Christ the Lord.

Today we celebrate the 

Feast Day of Our Lady of Compassion

the patron of Heart's Home

our model and teacher in this school of being

our companion on this journey of love

our strength through the sorrows and sufferings, of others or our own

our courage in the loneliness and darkness 

our light, and hope with Christ

our Mother. 


Instead of saying something of my own...I want to give to you the beautiful texts and insights that have helped me over the past 9 months to live better this being with/school/life of compassion by Mary's side, by the side of all those who suffer.

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Near the Cross Stood Mary

Fr. Thierry de Roucy

Dear Missionaries, Beloved brothers and sisters,

Your Sending Forth Mass providentially takes place on the feast day of Our Lady of Sorrows, called Our Lady of Compassion in the Oriental Church. This very feast, even if the Sunday liturgy pushed it to the back ground, sheds a per fect light on your mis sion. Moreover, it gives so much meaning to our mis sion that I pro claim it today patronal feast of the Heart’s Home Organization.

I ask you to join Mary along the “via Crucis” and at the foot of her Son’s cross. It doesn’t matter that you can’t join her phys i cally; the impor tant thing is to go and dwell in her heart.The mis sion of a mis sionary is nothing but to stand here, beside all the slums and des ti tu tion of the world, and to share the suf fer ings of the people, to con sole them, to offer them themost beau tiful loving smile. To quote this won derful sen tence of Pope Paul VI, the mis sion is “to be in the center of the Church, just like a manometer, an instru ment that gauges thepres sure, the wounds of the Christ’s body, let’s say of the suf fering humanity”. Thus “We are con vinced that our com pas sion con soles the humanity that goes through this long pas sion”(March 27^th 1964.) Mary is standing here. Her pas sivity and, at the same time, the incred ible inten sity of her pres ence astonish us. She is some times por trayed as kneeling at the foot ofthe cross, breaking down and crying. The apostle John, true wit ness of this inef fable mys tery, tells us that she is standing. We can’t imagine any thing else. She is tending towards the heart of her Son, so as to be a chalice col lecting His whole blood. She is tending towards His eyes, so as to pen e trate His soul. She is tending towards His mouth, so as to listen to the depth of His cry, hearing the ulti mate silence of the Word. She is united with Him, sharing His suf­fering, and, better, sharing love with Him. She therefore achieves the per fec tion of com pas­sion.

She doesn’t do any thing. She doesn’t shout, she doesn’t beat the guards up so that they free Him. She fol lows the plan of the Father entirely, com forting her Son with the very simple love of her heart. Nothing else could have con soled him in such a per fect way. She fully hopes. She doesn’t do any thing. But nothing helps her Son more than the full ness of her pres ence. She doesn’t say any thing. But nothing expresses her love more per fectly than this gaze totally out­stretched towards Him, which infinitely con soles Him. Mary remains silent, and this silence ofthe cross is the truest and strongest dec la ra tion of love ever. Mary remains silent and this union is the strongest union ever. Her silence is a per fect offering of her self and full renun ci a­tion. The wounded inno cent Christ gives Himself up to the Church. The Church, through Mary, gives itself up to its Spouse, renouncing totally its own will: “fiat vol untas tua!” Hence, this union, qui etly, even without any ges ture, is the most fruitful of all unions ever.

Dear mis sion aries, you are about to leave. Whether you go to India, Colombia or Romania, you will arrive at the same des ti na tion: Golgotha. We tried to teach you the lan guages of thechil dren whose lives you will share, but pri marily we do not expect words from you. Instead, we expect from you an elo quent pres ence, a com forting gaze, a full renun ci a tion of your­selves. To quote Genadios Mourany, Lebanese martyr, we expect from you that “all your apos­to late work may be summed up in this way: to live out of love”. You will see that, pro vided that you love -love intensely, love at all times, love con sid er ately- very few acts or words will be nec es sary to com fort those living in dreadful, inhuman or brutish con di tions. Remember this shout of Dona Gertrude -our friend from the rub bish dump of Lixo, El Salvador- “It is not because we rum mage in rub bish that we are dogs or pigs. We are humans, and God does not cast us away. Don’t we have a heart?” You will do nothing else but remind this truth to those who, unlike Dona Gertrude, have for gotten it. I implore you to seize any oppor tu nity to look with love. I implore you to “ex ag gerate love”, to quote Paul VI again. I implore you to come close to the cross of our friends, juxta crucem, so close to it that those hanged on it feel that you are hanged with them, that you totally share their des tinies. And, in fact, this is true, as we are of the same flesh and blood: the blood of God our savior. This is true, as all of us arebrothers and sis ters, in an incred ible way. No one is closer to any human than any otherhuman, as no one is closer to any human than God. No one is closer to any suf fering person than another suf fering person, as no one is closer to any suf fering person than God, who was made flesh to share all the suf fer ings of humanity.

In the end, going to Golgotha along with Mary is like living a per ma nent Mass. The Eucharist will be the center of your houses, your lives, your hearts. I quote this won derful pas sage from a letter written by Isabelle, a mis sionary, that enlightens us about the role of ado ra tion in every Heart’s Home: “ A time of ado ra tion is very impor tant if we want to rely on God. Which is all the more true as we live in a con tem pla tive com mu nity. The more I “con tem plate,” themore I meet Him “in the appear ance of chil dren”; the more I con tem plate, the more I look for Him within the faces of those I meet, the more He reveals him self in the heart of des ti tu­tion. The more I con tem plate, the more I find the people I encounter beau tiful, infinitely loved, infinitely sought after, infinitely lov able. The more I con tem plate, the more I feel infinitely loved, and only those who know they are infinitely loved can freely give evi dence and man i fest this infinite love to all. The more I con tem plate, the more I become an instru­ment of mercy, com pas sion and con so la tion. The people here don’t need the pres ence of a Missionary, but of God. So, if I can let myself be filled with His pres ence in con tem plating Him, I’ll be able to serve the chil dren, my arms will become His arms, and my gaze on themwill become His gaze... And all this is not a matter of having my head in the clouds. It takes place in extremely con crete sit u a tions, in very little things.”

These times of ado ra tion that you’ll spend everyday with Mary will pre pare you for the sac ri­fice of the Mass, when you will offer up to God all the des ti tu tion of humanity and all your own des ti tu tion, let ting Him trans figure your lives and the lives of your friends. Then with theeyes of faith your slums will not be slums any more, but already a part of the Kingdom, as thelove you’ll expe ri ence there is the same as in heaven. Eventually, you may not long so much for living in beau tiful palaces where indif fer ence and cold ness pre vail. Rather, you will know how an image which reaches the depths of your heart can trans figure your vision of the uni­verse!

Dear Missionaries, these slums will become the Kingdom, because they are places where you’ll dis cover and adore the pres ence of Jesus; where you’ll implore Mary to be pre sent, just as this mis sionary remark ably did: “On our way back from the hos pital where we have vis ited Geraldo together, I invited Suely to attend Mass with me. She accepts joy fully, although she feels tired. During the Mass, she is really moved, and cries twice. On her way out of thechurch, she col lapses into a chair, feeling dizzy and having ter rible stomach cramps. The diag­nosis is clear: “Fame” (hunger.) Antonieta, the doctor of the parish, intends to inject her with a painkiller and take her back home. But Suely shouts with pain and moans “Oh, meu Deus! Oh, Mahia!” Since Geraldo is in hos pital, she has not eaten any thing, and, before, she used to have only bread and coffee! So I take her in my arms, and she snug gles her head up on my shoulder. We are the same age, but she seems to be 15 years older than me. I’ll remember her shout forever: “Oh, Mahia! Oh, Mahia!” Hearing this, I remember the letter to the mis­sion aries about the rosary: “You decided to go where, some times, nothing is bear able but thepres ence of a mother...” “Oh, Mahia!” It’s no more time for end less speeches about hunger or long prayers, but for shouting. I feel as if I were holding a little child in my arms. In my hands, I feel this woman con torted by pain. My face is wet with her tears, and her shout makes my heart quiver. Along with Suely, I call upon Mary, and I shout: “Oh, Mahia... Oh, Mahia... Oh, Mahia...” And, near the cross, stood the Mother. It’s doubtless. With the Motherof every man, stand beside every man to tell him he is infinitely loved.

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Golgotha

Adrienne von Speyr

She stands before the Lord on the Cross like the embodiment and summation of mankind. When he looks at her, he no longer sees, for a moment, the atrocious sinners for whose sake and at whose hands he is dying; he sees mankind as if transfigured in the form of his Mother. He had redeemed her also, by preserving her from sin. That gives her the capacity to suffer with him, vicariously for all, as an embodiment of the meaning of the redemption, in the perfect unity of human nature and divine grace. 

He Himself suffers by being foresaken by the Godhead. Not only is the Father far away; the Son has also given back to him his own spirit and his Holy Spirit, in order to expose his humanity to suffering as naked as possible. Here he now meets his human mother, who suffers with him. Although it does not lessen his suffering, she is still a help to him. Outside of Christianity it can be noble and good to suffer in solitude so as to spare one's friends the sight of suffering. But in Christianity one would ultimately deprive one's neighbor of something by doing so, because suffering is fruitful and compassion is a grace. For Mother and Son, it is a gift to be allowed to suffer together. So also the Catholic tends not to die alone; his relatives and friends gather around his deathbed, although in purely human terms it might seem more discreet to leave him alone in death. Here there is a mystery of presence, which has its roots in Mary's presence at the foot of the Cross and makes assistance in suffering and death a tactful act of love.  

Of both the end and beginning one does not deep down know what they are in their inner essence, or when precisely they occur. The angel's visit seems to be a beginning and the death on the Cross, an end. But both are only the external event whereby something becomes visible which stretches out much further in both directions. The Mother already said Yes before she began to pray, and this frist prayer was already founded on her Immaculate Conception, which has its origin in the eternity of God. And so she said Yes to the Lord's death as well, when she gave her consent to the conception of the Redeemer. And whoever says Yes to a child consents to that little being's whole future work and fruitfulness, which extends into the unforseeable. And, in the end, both assents are one insofar as they are a unified service. Within this service Mary leaves the whole formation to God. She leaves it to him to make use of her as he wills, in joy and suffering. She does not say Yes in the beginning to a joyous conception and Yet at the end to a fearful death. Her Yes is bound to nothing other than the will of God--not even to any particular state or condition of her Son, still less to any transitory situation of her own. It is an indifferent Yes that can be shaped by God into the highest joy as well as the deepest sorrow. She herself will not influence the will of God in anything. She only accepts. 

As the darkness of forsakenness imprisons her more and more, it is finally dread--which, however, has nothing human about it anymore but is taken over entirely from the dread of the dying Son--which allows her to bear further the state of utter importance. Her readiness is greater than her capacity: her readiness to want to bear, greater than her capacity to bear. And because God looks upon her readiness, she does what lies beyond her capacity; she can do what she cannot do. It is increasing her dread that increases her readiness more and more. The more she dreads, the more she participates in the dread of her Son, and the more she desires, precisely in this dread, to be surrender. The whole over-straining of her strength is a gift of her Son, the expression of his perfect love. But she experiences in it no limits and no inertia but rather, with the increasing dread, only the increasing surrender. In the midst of dread she does not turn away from the dread even out of dreading. She does not take flight. Flight out of dread stems from original sin, which she does not know. She does not guard herself from dread; she does not shield herself from it nor hide it from herself. Nor does she set any end to it; "Up to this point I will continue to suffer, but I cannot go further." Such a setting of boundaries would lighten the last few steps remaining to be accomplished. She even knows she will not flee; so the increase of dread and forsakenness can go into the limitless, because only sin sets limits, but, in her, love is perfect. Her assent even unto the Cross has developed in a straight line toward God alone; it knows no other origin than God's openness...

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From Little Eyes

As a child at the Cross with Mary. Standing, staring in terrified awe at Him, at His Mother-each absorbed in the eyes of each other. What do they see, what do they say without moving their lips?

His body is relieved and taken down. She staggers, but a man comes and leads her somewhere to sit. She lovingly and gently moves as he guides. But she never takes her aways away from Him. They lay a sheet on her lap and place the Christ in her arms. There her strength is no more needed to hide her tears from others, from Him. Here she presses her lips to his forehead, for the first time the tears begin in torrents. Her shoulders quiver, the rivers of tears mixing with the blood that covers Him. She is left alone, not from fear or embarrassment or anxiety, but respect. She brings her forehead to his and as she rocks Him in her arms, she screams. She holds him close and keeps rocking. She is given her time to hold her only Son, covered in blood, wrapped in a cloth...much like the first time she held him in the cave in Bethlehem. But now it is Fulfilled, Complete, and the darkness of death has overshadowed the Star of Life from Bethlehem. Calm finds her in her mourning. Clam, or is it weariness. Holding and rocking Him still she sobs quietly, reveling in the freedom of her tears. She surveys his broken, lacerated body and thinks of how she will clean each wound, bathe each sore, kiss each pain before she gives him to the tomb. She looks. This time without her look being met. Yet the strength, the courage, still moving. 

In this moment, the child, silent, slow approaches the scene of sorrow. She had stayed under the cross, no longer looking up to the empty place, but turning his back to the cross to watch Mary in this moment from a distance. To see them lay His body in her arms. To watch her heart outpour. Now seeing the calming sorrow, she approaches. The mother doesn't look up. The child approaches first the feet, not daring to touch, then staring in frightful amazement, her eyes run the course of the body. Her little eyes survey what she doesnt understand. At times--reaching out to graze her finger over a wound on His wrist, then His side. It is real. The fear now gone the child stands at the shoulder of the body of Christ and sees the mother's hand, white from clenching in holding the upper body of her Son against her. The face of Christ eye level with the child, the Mother looks at her with a motherly look of sorrow, trying to bear it enough not to scare the child. Her eyes carry a certain openness inviting the child deeper into the mystery, reassuring her to foster no fear but to recognize the love. Nothing is said as the Mother takes her hand and caresses the cheek of her Son with the palm of her hand as if to say, "<See how lovely He is. See, He IS love> She caresses over his hairline, brushing aside the locks matted in blood against his skin and revealing a gash across his cheek. The eyes of the child never falter, she never quivers or steps back in fear. She looks from the wound in the cheek, leftover from that kiss of betrayal, to the Mother's hand, to the Mother's eyes. In this meeting the little girl knows and the Mother consents. She leans up and kisses the wound The littlest girl soothing betrayal's gash with the balm of love. 

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Excerpts from 'Spe Salvi

Pope Benedict XVI

38. The true measure of humanity is essentially determined in relationship to suffering and to the sufferer. This holds true both for the individual and for society. A society unable to accept its suffering members and incapable of helping to share their suffering and to bear it inwardly through “com-passion” is a cruel and inhuman society. Yet society cannot accept its suffering members and support them in their trials unless individuals are capable of doing so themselves; moreover, the individual cannot accept another's suffering unless he personally is able to find meaning in suffering, a path of purification and growth in maturity, a journey of hope. Indeed, to accept the “other” who suffers, means that I take up his suffering in such a way that it becomes mine also. Because it has now become a shared suffering, though, in which another person is present, this suffering is penetrated by the light of love. The Latin word con-solatio, “consolation”, expresses this beautifully. It suggests being with the other in his solitude, so that it ceases to be solitude. Furthermore, the capacity to accept suffering for the sake of goodness, truth and justice is an essential criterion of humanity, because if my own well-being and safety are ultimately more important than truth and justice, then the power of the stronger prevails, then violence and untruth reign supreme. Truth and justice must stand above my comfort and physical well-being, or else my life itself becomes a lie. In the end, even the “yes” to love is a source of suffering, because love always requires expropriations of my “I”, in which I allow myself to be pruned and wounded. Love simply cannot exist without this painful renunciation of myself, for otherwise it becomes pure selfishness and thereby ceases to be love.

39. To suffer with the other and for others; to suffer for the sake of truth and justice; to suffer out of love and in order to become a person who truly loves—these are fundamental elements of humanity, and to abandon them would destroy man himself. Yet once again the question arises: are we capable of this? Is the other important enough to warrant my becoming, on his account, a person who suffers? Does truth matter to me enough to make suffering worthwhile? Is the promise of love so great that it justifies the gift of myself? God cannot suffer, but he can suffer with. Man is worth so much to God that he himself became man in order to suffer with man in an utterly real way—in flesh and blood—as is revealed to us in the account of Jesus's Passion. Hence in all human suffering we are joined by one who experiences and carries that suffering with us; hence con-solatio is present in all suffering, the consolation of God's compassionate love—and so the star of hope rises.