Welcome to the third issue of the Diocese of Joliet’s Missionary Discipleship newsletter. In this issue, I want to focus on the importance of empathy in missionary discipleship. In the audio above, click to listen to Deacon Dominic Cerrato, the director of Diaconal Formation for the Diocese of Joliet and the editor of Deacon Digest. In the short podcast, he talks about how empathy helps him encounter and accompany others, along with what empathy has taught him in his ministry and how empathy applies to evangelization. For those of you who don’t work for the Church, what he talks about still applies as being a missionary disciple is not only for those who work in ministerial/pastoral capacities.
First a definition: Empathy means “feeling into” – or, I feel your pain in my heart. Empathy means you must set aside your own thoughts and feelings and pay attention only to the other person’s thoughts and feelings. You then begin to see and understand the world from that person’s perspective. A common way it is described is: You know what it’s like to walk in someone else’s shoes. All this requires us to be vulnerable. Here is an example of how Jesus showed empathy to someone in the Gospel of St. Mark, Chapter 7:24-30:
Mark’s Gospel passage recounting Jesus’ conversation with the Syrophoenician woman offers much wisdom for our time.
In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus performs a miracle of healing. This is a story about a miracle for our time — a story about two strangers who likely began their encounter very much aware of the categorical divisions of gender, religion, “nation,” and social standing which separated them — and who reached across those divisions toward healing. Yes, a miracle indeed!
Mark tells us Jesus entered pagan territory, and although he has tried to escape notice, Jesus’ reputation as a healer has preceded him. A bold woman enters the house where Jesus is. This Gentile has a problem. The daughter she loves has an unclean spirit.
She has heard that Jesus has the power to heal. Heated conversation ensues: “(Jesus) said to her, ‘Let the children be fed first. For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.’ She replied and said to him, ‘Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps’” (Mark 7:27-28). Jesus responds by healing her daughter and asks nothing of this woman but faith.
How did these two people bridge the divide of their differences? During their encounter, Jesus and the Gentile woman have a rather harsh-sounding dialogue. Jesus expresses his point of view — clearly and firmly. But Jesus, the Galilean Jew, is willing to engage in dialogue with the Gentile, Syrophoenician woman.
Jesus, who has all the answers, is willing to listen. By listening with empathy and insight, he hears her need, sees her humility, and responds with mercy.
— From an article in the Catholic Virginian, the newspaper of the Diocese of Richmond, written by Karen Robinson, who has a master’s degree in theology from St. Mary’s University, San Antonio, Texas.
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Here is a short film that visually moves us to feel empathy:
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There is a cost to empathy. And the cost comes at the moment when the capacity for empathy crosses over into the activity of empathy. This means to be truly effective in any ministry or relationship, you have to realize that empathy is not a feeling but an action. You feel pain with the other person.
(By way of contrast, sympathy is feeling for someone else. In other words, when we feel bad for them; for instance, if someone you know dies, we usually say,” You have my sympathy.” Or, “I feel bad for you.” All those are feelings. Sympathy essentially implies a feeling of recognition of another's suffering, while empathy is actually sharing another's suffering, if only briefly.)
Empathy is a skill – and it’s also a choice. It fuels connection. And this connection is vital when you’re a missionary disciple, because, when you encounter or accompany someone else, that connection allows trust to build and also allows for a greater understanding of the other.
Here is what Pope Francis has to share about this:
"This capacity for empathy leads to a genuine encounter – we have to progress toward this culture of encounter – in which heart speaks to heart..."
In order to be empathetic, you have to be in tune with your own emotions/feelings. Empathy means honoring someone else’s perspective as truth, even when that perspective is different than ours. Empathy is not about fixing someone else, such as giving advice. It’s making the choice to be with someone in their darkness – and not turn on the light to make us feel better.
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The Little Flower was also a beacon of empathy. When St. Thérèse of Lisieux was a novice, she volunteered to help an elderly, sickly nun to the dining hall. Nothing seemed good enough for her, no matter how hard Thérèse tried. But, then, Thérèse related in her autobiography, The Story of a Soul: “I soon noticed that she found it very difficult to cut her bread, so I did not leave her till I had performed this last service. She was much touched by this attention on my part, for she had not expressed any wish on the subject; it was by this unsought-for kindness that I gained her entire confidence, and chiefly because — as I learnt later — at the end of my humble task I bestowed upon her my sweetest smile.”
— From a story in the National Catholic Register in November 2017
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I was heartened this past week by something I read that addressed this very subject of listening. It was written by Diana Hancharenko, a young adult minister from the Diocese of Youngstown. She wrote a white paper that was submitted to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ as part of its ongoing conversation about the future of young adult ministry at the National Leadership Forum on Ministry with Young Adults in San Jose, Calif., late last year. Hancharenko wrote:
“In my ministry, after years of planning various activities and experiences for young adults and letting that count as the primary approach to young adult ministry, it became clear to my colleagues and me that this was not the only avenue to pursue in what typically emphasized as an event-based ministry. While events are integral and can bear good fruit, they seem incomplete in the scope of the larger mission of outreach and evangelization. Numbers at young adult events can become stagnant, and despite valiant and creative efforts in advertising and outreach, very few new young adults connect to the quality offerings. For me, it became essential to figure out why. A new way was needed to truly reach and connect with young adults and welcome them to journey in the Church.”
Her solution: asking questions and listening of those who were disconnected from the Church. In other words, really trying to feel into the pain in the hearts of the young adults she was ministering to. In other words, empathy.
At the heart of the conversations, she wrote, were three questions: What were the young adults’ positive experiences or associations in the Church? What were their negative associations and experiences, which contributed to them to feel apart from the Church and may explain their lack of participation? What can be done to bring them back to the Church?
This mindset, Hancharenko wrote, “is beginning to open gateways that seemed to be closed before to both parties. It has extended interactions beyond the lunches, cups of coffee, or visits that initially started the dialogue. Nearly all of the young adults in this process have followed up with additional questions of comments. Many of the young adults have attended a parish function when they may not have otherwise, prior to the conversation.”
— From a blog post written two years ago by me, the writer of this newsletter, Carlos Briceño
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What is the worst pain or evil that has been inflicted on you personally? Whatever it is, Christ has experienced its equal in His passion and death. He empathizes; He knows you in that pain. And the only thing worse (to me) than such personal pain would be to witness such pain inflicted on the one(s) you love the most, as our Blessed Mother had to do. Have you lost a child? Have you walked with a spouse through a ravaging disease that finally ended that dear one’s life? Mary knows you in that pain. She watched her son be nailed to a cross and stood there until the end. She can intercede for you with empathy and such compassionate love. ....
The empathy of Christ and His Blessed Mother extends through us, beyond us. In offering a balm for our wounds, it enables us to empathetically love others in return. When we realize that we are known and are the recipients of such empathetic love, then we are able to empathize more fully with others. When we realize that we are loved by two people who have collectively experienced any pain that we ever will, then the overflow of that grace will move our hearts to love others that way as well.
— From a Catholic Mom blog written by Jessica Ptomey
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Last but not least, I want to share with you this thought on empathy, especially as it applies to encountering others we hope to evangelize:
The Importance and Power of Empathy in Being a Missionary Disciple