Sometimes a single word or short phrase from a sacred text can stir rewarding refllection. Just thinking about the word or repeating the phrase silently can provide spiritual seekers with surprisingly rich food for the soul as we go about our ordinary tasks. Such language can also give us interior strength for the challenges of daily life and sometimes motivation for changing behavior.
Such a phrase struck me as I heard it read aloud in my church during one of the Christmas liturgies. Two words jumped out at me from a list of virtues that St. Paul urges upon the Christians who live in the city of Colossae in Asia Minor. Writing around the year 60, he exhorts them to transform their conduct, making it more like the Lord’s.
Hearing the words “heartfelt compassion” reminded me that one of the prime features in the spiritual traditions of both East and West is the virtue of compassion. The word’s Latin roots mean “suffering with” and suggest entering sympathetically into another person’s life when that person is struggling.
Together with enlightenment, compassion forms the bedrock of the spiritual life, as understood by many of the great religions of the world. By enlightenment, we are enabled to see things in God’s light; by compassion, we are empowered to reach out to others with loving concern.
The longer section of St. Paul’s beautiful text is worth repeating so as to identify the other virtues that accompany compassion. He tells the Colossians: “Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do. And over all these put on love that is the bond of perfection.”
Curious about the root meaning of the word translated as “heartfelt,” I consulted the original text. The Greek word turns out to be “splagchnon,” one almost impossible to pronounce because of all its consonants.
Not without some mild shock, I discovered that the word means “bowels.” To us moderns the word sounds anatomical, referring to the intestines. In biblical times, however, it was used metaphorically to indicate the center where a person’s truest self is found. Its meaning comes close to what we intend by heart, that is, the seat of our deepest feelings.
Various translations of the New Testament show different approaches to the phrase. Two traditional versions reproduce the equivalent word: a standard Latin version translates it literally by the phrase “viscera misericordiae” and the classic 17th century King James Bible uses the phrase “bowels of mercies.” The modern Revised Standard Version, however, backs away from the literal meaning, dropping the word bowels altogether and simply saying compassion.
The translation read in my church is the New American Bible. The scholars responsible for rendering the Greek into English found what seems a happy medium. As noted above, they called it “heartfelt compassion.” In doing so, they directed attention to the heart as the central organ that we associate with feeling. They take account of the modern way of describing human feeling, in which we often make reference to the heart.
Admittedly, however, heartfelt lacks the earthiness of the original word and therefore some of its force. We tend to pass over the word heartfelt without realizing the power of the original Greek word. “Heartfelt” clearly rates as an English equivalent but nonetheless it makes you see why the word translator in some languages is itself translated as “traitor.”
Paul wants his people to offer others, not pale, dutiful “charity” as that word is now often understood. Rather, he wants us to reach out to others in a feeling way. Our compassion is heartfelt when our whole person is invested in it, when we offer sympathetic help to others, giving of the best in ourselves.
This kind of compassion represents a marvelous ideal. Whether you think it is actually practiced often depends perhaps on how you see the world. Those who look at the bright side would cite numerous acts of heartfelt compassion; those for whom pessimism is the norm will bemoan the absence of enough compassion among members of the human family.
“Heartfelt compassion” is a phrase worthy of reflection and, even more so, of being put into practice.
Richard Griffin