Ear to Hear

COMPASSION . . . .  SICK AND WEAK PEOPLE . . . .

Take care of the sick and the weak, and consider that they are suffering and need your help. You should be compassionate and constantly consider the welfare of these poor people, whose physical afflictions make their life intolerable, you should try to alleviate this suffering and selflessly help them at all times. This is pleasing to God, and since you are all children of God, one shall also be concerned for the other and not allow heartlessness or indifference towards your fellow human being arise in you. How often do people pass by the sick and the weak without offering them a comforting word, it is very depressing for these sufferers. They are helpless in their state and grateful for every word granted by love.... And how often do they have to go without because no considerate word is spoken to them. They are lonely, and their soul is seized by profound sadness, for it hungers for love and is only scantily considered….

And the Lord teaches compassion.... and promises eternal bliss, for compassion presupposes love, and only a labour of love will bring salvation to the soul. Compassion is purest neighbourly love, for it wants to help and expects nothing in return…. A person can be ailing in body as well as in soul …. and bringing him help is always inexpressibly valuable…. speaking words of comfort to the physically weak and offering the psychologically sick and frail the right remedy out of  kind-hearted neighbourly love… For the body's suffering will come to an end one day but not that of the soul unless it is approached by active neighbourly love bringing it help to escape its adversity.

The weak and ailing person, however, needs twice as much support, for the body's weakness often also lets the soul descend into helplessness, and it can only be helped by selfless love which, as it were, awakens the soul from its lethargic state and thus stimulates it to take care of improving its condition.  Then the human being will also bear his physical suffering with patience, if only the soul has come to the right recognition on account of its fellow human being's active help which supported it during its adversity.

Any actively compassionate person can bestow untold blessings, for the earthly child will feel this both earthly as well as spiritually, and the thus considered person will have to feel relieved and, on account of the spiritual strength which shines across with every deed of love, turn his gaze upwards. And thus will love and compassion for sick and weak people result in twice as many blessings…. It will help to improve the physical condition of the sick and weak and simultaneously be extremely beneficial for the soul, and therefore, don't forget to grant them your help and kind-hearted sympathy, lift them up physically and spiritually, and thereby also let their time of suffering become a time of spiritual maturing for them…. and the Lord will bless those who are full of compassion towards their suffering fellow human beings…. Amen

BD 1032