The stigmata Francis received in his final years revealed God’s pain within his pain. The stigmata reflected God’s empathy expanding Francis’s own empathy and circle of love to include all creation. Francis’s God is not aloof or apathetic. God is embedded in the pain and joy of the world. Our calling, as Francis and Clare discovered, is to identify the pain of the least of these as God’s pain. God experiences the pain and joy of creatures, which touch the heart of our immanent and intimate God. As Bonaventure writes, God is “totally submerged in the waters from the sole of the foot to the top of the head…. [God] appeared to you as your beloved cut through with wound upon wound in order to heal you.”
Gazing on the cross, as Clare counseled the royal Agnes of Prague, is not an abstract intellectual exercise, but a personal identification with God’s pain on the cross and in every moment of human misery. Clare’s gazing upon Jesus inspired her own solidarity with the pain of the world, and the divine and human empathy toward those who suffer also encompasses the joy of experiencing Christ’s resurrection, God’s loving triumph that brings healing to all creation and invites us to be messengers of hope to those who have been crushed by suffering and injustice.
—from the book Simplicity, Spirituality, Service: The Timeless Wisdom of Francis, Clare, and Bonaventure by Bruce G. Epperly
“Have you ever heard someone say, “Religious people are stupid!” I’ve heard it many times, but someone said it in a conversation recently and I challenged myself to really think it through.
When we hear statements like this, our tendency is to either accept them as completely true or reject them as completely false.
In the case of the statement, “Religious people are stupid” people who oppose religion instantly accept it and religious people instantly reject. The problem with that is that we are just reacting based on bias, rather than thinking critically.
Are religious people stupid? No. Why am I so certain? Well, for one, the statement is a gross generalization, there are billions of people on the planet who fall into this category, and at the very least generalizations are never completely true.
Some people would be satisfied at this and return to the comfortable place in their mind, assured that religious people are not stupid.
But let’s go a little further.
Why? Because the further we go, the more compete our answer, the greater confidence we can have in our conclusions.
So, I asked myself two questions: Why do some people believe religious people are stupid? and Do religious people behave stupidly sometimes?
The main reason non-religious people believe religious people are stupid is found in their accusation that religious people are “narrow-minded.” But then I asked myself another question: How to non-religious people experience religious people’s so-called narrow-mindedness? Is it in rigorous discussion of important topics? I don’t think so. It’s through judgement, sometimes real and sometimes imagined.
The definition of stupid is “showing lack of intelligence or common sense.” So, this is the question that emerges: Is it stupid to be judgmental?
Jesus was clear in Matthew 7:1 when he said simply, “Do not judge.” He repeated this teaching many times throughout his public life.
I think a fairly good case could be made that judging other people shows a lack of intelligence and a lack of common sense.
But why did Jesus counsel us not to judge? Many reasons, but let’s look at a three. First, because it is unreasonable to ask someone to do something they are incapable of doing. It’s like asking a three-year-old to teach a post-graduate course on bio-ethics. When we judge other people we are pretending to be God, but we are eminently unqualified.
Next, because judging others interferes with healthy human relations (something God is intensely interested in). And finally, because judging other people poisons our hearts and complicates our souls.
All these lead to chaos and confusion and God prefers order and clarity.
But here is the big revelation I discovered in my recent exploration of this topic: Judgement makes empathy impossible.
What is empathy? It’s the ability to emotional understand what other people are experiencing and feeling. It’s the ability to see things from another person’s perspective. It’s the ability to imagine yourself in their situation. Or… and this is a big one… the awareness that for whatever reason you are unable to relate or connect or imagine what it feels like to be that person.
Empathy is so central to human relationships that God rigorously steers us away from anything that impedes it, and judgement seems to be at the top of that list.
Judgement makes empathy impossible.
I don’t know for sure if it is stupid to judge others, but I do know that empathy is a beautiful expression of emotional genius that we are all capable of and that we should all continue to develop.
Are religious people stupid? No. But we do behave stupidly sometimes, and when we do, we impede other people’s ability to experience God.
Judgment belongs to God and stealing from God is never a good idea.
The difference between God’s judgment and human judgement is that in His perfection God can judge and remain empathetic. His judgement and mercy are in perfect balance and unison. When human being become judgmental it shuts down our capacity our empathic functions, creating division and conflict.
There is no such thing as a highly evolved spiritual person who lacks empathy. Empathy is proof that the truth of religion has taken deep root in our lives.”
“Empathy is a sign that you care about other people, that the well-being and happiness of other people matters to you. It’s all about being able to tune into other people’s feelings and emotions.
Here are 11 Signs You are an Empathetic Person:
1. You are a good listener.
2. You have a keen sense of how other people are feeling.
3. You care deeply about other people.
4. You go out of your way to help others who are suffering.
5. People are comfortable opening up to you and sharing their problems.
6. Tragic events, even those that you are not directly involved in, stir a sadness in your soul and can even feel overwhelming.
7. Social situations sometimes drain or overwhelm you.
8. You consider what feelings your words and actions will provoke in others.
9. You struggle to set and maintain boundaries in relationships with other people.
10. You sense when people are being dishonest.
11. Other people seek you out for advice.
Empathy is a sign of high emotional intelligence. In our quest to become the-best-version-of-ourselves empathy is an indispensable tool.
Have a great day, and remember don’t just be yourself, be the best version of yourself!”
I am afraid we are all born rather egocentric. We are the only reference point that we have, at least initially. “It’s all about me, and why shouldn’t it be?” If Mom and Dad mirror us well, we soon develop “mirror neurons” for empathy and relationship with others, but even other people can still be seen as mere means to my own power and pleasure. Or I can think I deserve everything, which we call a sense of entitlement.
Unless there is some pressure, social or parental, pushing the infant beyond the pleasure principle, human nature tends to largely take the path of least resistance. We really do need prods, goads, ideals to help us think outside of the little boxes we all create for ourselves. That is the function of laws and commandments. Only in the more mature person can love and grace take over—or even be understood.
