Mk 6:34-44
34When [Jesus] disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. 35By now it was already late and his disciples approached him and said, “This is a deserted place and it is already very late. 36Dismiss them so that they can go to the surrounding farms and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” 37He said to them in reply, “Give them some food yourselves.” But they said to him, “Are we to buy two hundred days’ wages worth of food and give it to them to eat?” 38He asked them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” And when they had found out they said, “Five loaves and two fish.” 39So he gave orders to have them sit down in groups on the green grass. 40The people took their places in rows by hundreds and by fifties.
41Then, taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to [his] disciples to set before the people; he also divided the two fish among them all. 42They all ate and were satisfied. 43And they picked up twelve wicker baskets full of fragments and what was left of the fish. 44Those who ate [of the loaves] were five thousand men.
Jesus’ heart was moved with pity: The beginning of charity and change, I believe, is compassion or being moved to pity. This compassion in Jesus’ heart does not only mean to feel sorry, to shed a tear, or to donate to charity. It is to live with the people. There can never be change without being with people. To be moved with pity is to walk in the shoes of your sisters and brothers, to feel their pain, to claim their hopes, and to understand their longings.
There are many more incidents in the gospels where Jesus is moved to pity. It will dictate his actions even while hanging helpless on the cross. But it is the same feeling that makes him hope and believe in the Father. Jesus holds that his Father has a heart that pities and forgives. Jesus has a Father who responds and listens with a compassionate heart.
Our call is to have hearts—not of stones or with stiff necks or high chins—that know how to laugh, cry, share, and believe when the moment calls for these feelings.