Criticism is Easy, Compassion is Hard

Column by Joe Pisani

It took me a lifetime to learn that we’re called to be compassionate, not critical. And I still can’t get it right.

You see, I have a serious problem with judging other people. In confession, one of my recurring sins is that I’m critical. It comes so easily, until I remember those words of Jesus, “Do not judge or you too will be judged.” 

When our kids were growing up, it seemed that complaining about people was the topic of discussion around the dinner table. Whenever that happened, my father, who was a recovering alcoholic, would toss out a bit of AA wisdom to quell the commotion with four simple words, “Live and let live.” Followed by “Take your own inventory.”

It was sort of his colloquial interpretation of “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

Jesus was pretty serious when it came to being critical of other people. Judging is his prerogative alone, largely because he knows all the pain and trauma that a person holds inside, which is often responsible for the way they behave.

On the other hand, how much compassion can I have for someone whose DNA inclines them toward nastiness? Don’t they deserve to be criticized? Can we realistically be expected to show them compassion?

Showing compassion to the proud and the supercilious is a real challenge, and yet they’re the ones who need it the most. They need it so much, they don’t even realize how much they need it because they think they’re better than everyone.

Compassion for the self-righteous? Compassion for the haughty? Compassion for people in power who think they’re entitled to lord it over others? That’s a tall order.

In her book Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, author Karen Armstrong said: “Compassion means ‘to endure [something] with another person,’ to put ourselves in somebody else’s shoes, to feel her pain as though it were our own, and to enter generously into his point of view. That is why compassion is aptly summed up in the Golden Rule, which asks us to look into our own hearts, discover what gives us pain and then refuse, under any circumstance whatsoever, to inflict that pain on anybody else.” 

Throughout the Gospels, you’ll find occasions where Jesus was “moved with compassion” for people who were sick or grieving or hungry.

I’m convinced we’ll be incapable of showing compassion toward people who make us miserable unless we look at them with the eyes of Christ. We have to pray that Jesus gives us the grace to let us see them as he does in their pitiful state.

Jesus didn’t just feel compassion for the lepers and the poor. He also felt compassion for the sinners and people who made mistakes.

He certainly had compassion for Peter, who made quite a few mistakes, most notably denying Jesus three times.

During this Jubilee of St. Francis, I even wondered about him. He had compassion for the leper, the poor and the suffering, but did he have compassion for his father? I’m sure his father probably reacted to Francis’ disavowal of all that he had been given by saying, “After all I did for you.”

Those words have been on the lips of parents throughout history, including my own. So if you’re a parent struggling to give your kids a better life and you don’t feel appreciated, you have a sense of what Pietro di Bernardone went through. Let’s hope St. Francis had compassion for him.    

Christ is infinitely compassionate, and he has more compassion for us than we have for ourselves because he knows everything about us. He knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows how our past formed us, and he knows how instead of learning from our mistakes we’re usually tormented by them.

Several years ago, I was given a valuable lesson from one of my students who had been sexually assaulted in the military and struggled to forgive. During one class, she spoke about being a survivor of abuse and said, “Hurt people hurt people.”

It’s true. People who hurt others were often the victims of hurt themselves and have so much anger inside that they lash out and inflict wounds on others, oftentimes for no reason at all.

Lord, give me the grace to have more compassionate, even for people who don’t deserve it. Give me the grace to see people as you do, especially the people who hurt me.