How do we prepare ourselves to respond to crises, to conflict, to the Christ moment? How do we so open ourselves to Love that the fears which paralyze us are overcome? "I have found in my own life and through conversations with others that people need more and more to see the connection between ordinary reality and extraordinary grace, between everyday events and the divine mystery manifested in them. As this sensitivity to the sacred increases, we desire to give high priority to the person-to-person relationship that exists between the pilgrim soul and God. Only through the strength derived from this bond is it possible to give ourselves in turn to the service of others in the world."
When someone has compassion on us, we find ourselves really seen, heard, attended to. If someone's attention is genuinely compassionate, it does not stop at attentiveness: he or she is willing to speak, act, or even suffer with us and for us. It is in such passivity, as we receive their compassion, that the most powerful dynamics of our own feeling and activity are shaped. Amazed gratitude for such compassion can last a lifetime.