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Views from the Choir Loft

True Compassion

Fr. David Friel · June 9, 2013

ERHAPS YOU WORK in a parish office; perhaps you work in a classroom; perhaps you work in both. Most musicians work odd hours, but imagine for a moment that you have a 9-to-5 job. Now imagine that it’s 4:30 on Friday afternoon. It’s been a long week, and you’ve gotten a lot of things done. At this point, no one is starting any new projects. Then the phone rings. This could be anything, so you (along with all your coworkers) are hesitant to answer, for fear that the person on the other end might want something more complicated than you’re interested in getting involved with at this point in the week. The temptation is there to ignore the phone and just breeze into the weekend.

Take another example. I like to hike & camp & backpack, so imagine you are on a long backpacking trip. You have just finished a 15-mile day, and you’re approaching your campsite for the night. The first thing you want to do is take your boots off, sit down, and relax a bit. But you know that someone needs to set up the stove immediately and get some water boiling for dinner. The temptation is there to slip into the background and let somebody else deal with it so you can go on relaxing.

We have all been in similar situations, and so has Jesus. One day, Jesus came to the end of a long day’s hike to a city called Nain. As He and the large crowd with Him approached the city gate, they found a big funeral procession leaving the city. Yes, Jesus is fully divine, but He is also fully human, so I am very certain that, after a long day’s journey, the last thing He wanted to get involved with was a funeral procession and a grieving family. Yet our Lord does not allow that merely human inclination to get the better of Him. Instead, He rises above that. According to the Gospel, “He stepped forward.” He could have snuck back into the crowd or hid behind a rock or entered the city through a different gate. But He didn’t. Why?

Because, according to St. Luke, “He was moved with pity” for the woman who was not only the boy’s mother, but also a widow. In other words, Jesus allowed Himself to feel compassion for the poor widow of Nain. To be compassionate means, literally, to be able to “suffer with” the poor and downtrodden. It seems like the world wants to tell us that real men can’t be compassionate, though. Do you get the sense sometimes that, in the eyes of the world, authentic masculinity means remaining detached, unemotive, “strong”? I daresay that a man who cannot feel compassion is not “strong,” but weak & cold. Jesus is the greatest model of manhood there ever was, and He shows by example that compassion is not just for mothers.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that we all have to go around weepy and crying and pretending to be “sensitive,” but we do have to show true compassion. So, men: let’s reclaim what it means to be strong men who can recognize the needs of others and not be cold and unresponsive. Women: demand true manhood from the men in your life.

Jesus could have avoided the encounter with widow of Nain, but He chose instead to step forward and get involved. He could have given in to the human inclination to stay out of it, but He allowed Himself to be “moved with pity” for the poor woman. A real man is a man of compassion, and a man of compassion is a man of service. Can we—men and women—do the same? Can we be moved by compassion to step forward and be of service to those who suffer around us? We must, because the Gospel demands this of us.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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About Fr. David Friel

Ordained in 2011, Father Friel served as Parochial Vicar at Saint Anselm Church in Northeast Philly before earning a doctorate in liturgical theology at The Catholic University of America. He presently serves as Vocation Director for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and teaches liturgy at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary.—(Read full biography).

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Quick Thoughts

    Tempo?? • 𝘏𝘰𝘭𝘺 𝘎𝘰𝘥, 𝘞𝘦 𝘗𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘴𝘦 𝘛𝘩𝘺 𝘕𝘢𝘮𝘦
    Once, after Mass, my pastor said he really loved the hymn we did. I said: “Father, that's Holy God, We Praise Thy Name—you never heard it before?” He replied: “But the way you did it was terrific. For once, it didn't sound like a funeral dirge!” Last Sunday, our volunteer choir sang that hymn. I think the tempo was just about right … but what do you think?
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Don’t You Agree About These?
    If you want to make Jeff Ostrowski really happy, send him an email with effusive praise about the individual voice recordings for hymn #296. [Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass] They came out dazzlingly sensational, don't you agree?
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Choral Vowels? Yes? No?
    Here's a live recording of one of the choral “warm-up” exercises my choir enjoys. It was taken during our rehearsal on 27 January 2023. It’s good to make sure each chord is perfectly in tune and balanced before moving to the next one. That only happens when each singer has the correct vowel. If you like, you can freely download that vocal exercise.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

The Council of Trent taught: “In this divine sacrifice which takes place at Mass, the same Christ is present and is immolated in an unbloody manner, Who once on the Cross offered Himself in a bloody manner. For the victim is one and the same, now offering through the ministry of priests, Who then offered Himself on the Cross; only the manner of offering is different” (Session XXII, cap. 2, Denzinger, n. 940).

— Pope Pius XII (2 November 1954)

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