Day: September 24, 2023

“And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her.”

Today’s Gospel is a powerful and moving illustration of what Paul means by our “being rooted and grounded in love.” The compassion of Christ is the deep love of God in himself and for us. Thus these readings illuminate the theme of the Trinity season captured in the Scripture phrase for the Trinity season: “God is love and he that abideth in love abideth in God and God in him.” In a way, the entire project and purpose of the Trinity season is about our circling around and into the divine mystery of God’s love, seeking that love as the moving principle in us.

To understand the compassion of Christ shown in the Gospel story of the widow of Nain is “to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge.” It might seem paradoxical: to know what is beyond our knowing. Yet that is the great philosophical insight: our knowing is always about what is greater than us. Our knowing is finite and partial but belongs to the greater knowing of God. Knowing and loving go together which is itself another challenge for us: to see the connection between knowledge and love is to be awakened to the deeper and greater reality of God in his ultimate being, ultimate knowing and ultimate loving. Such is the mercy that never ends and as such it is the “continual pity” of God which alone can “cleanse and defend” God’s Church. That “continual pity” is the compassion of God made visible in Christ.

Luke provides the greatest number of Gospel readings in the Trinity season. Dante, in a wonderful phrase, identifies Luke as scriba manseutudinis Christi, the scribe of the gentleness of Christ. That gentleness is the compassion of Christ. Thus, Luke’s Gospel is sometimes called the “Gospel of Compassion” because of the touching and compelling scenes and stories which his Gospel highlights. Luke alone, for example, gives us the stories of the Good Samaritan, the prodigal son, and the widow of Nain.

All three turn on the idea of seeing that leads to compassion. In the parable of the good Samaritan, the certain Samaritan “when he saw him [the certain man, the symbol of our humanity, lying wounded and half dead on the roadside], he had compassion on him.” In the story of the prodigal son, it is the father who when his son “was at a distance, saw him and had compassion.” And Jesus coming to the gate of the little city, Nain, meets the funeral procession of the only son of the widow of Nain as they proceed to the graveside. “And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her.”

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