5th Sorrow of Mary - Empathy - Catholic Meditation Lessons

[Beatificus]

The 3 models of Self (Self-awareness, Self-fulfillment, Selflessness), understanding past life karma, and defining the true meaning of faith – all of these creates the foundation of "I." We must understand and evaluate ourselves first before we can open our minds to be able to go a step further towards Enlightenment, which is the ability to be empathetic.

Empathy - the concept of understanding others - plays a significant role in how we maintain our ability to change our karma and continually be self-aware of our spiritual journey. Without empathy, we are unable to attain the level of self-awareness and selflessness to remove ourselves from negative karma situations that could deter us in our journey to Enlightenment.

In the fifth sorrow of Mother Mary, she had to witness the cruel and grueling death of her son, Jesus Christ. She had to stand by helplessly as soldiers stuck large nails through Jesus' hands and feet, blood dripping from the wounds caused by the crown of thorns they placed on his head. She had to listen as the crowd mocked her son, laughing and hurling hurtful words at him up until his very last breath.  A situation as harsh as this can easily drive a person to forget all about forgiveness and living a righteous life – why should she when everyone around her has shown the opposite of kindness and mercy? The answer is empathy – the ability to look beyond herself and understand others, to change her anger into pity for them. Her empathy allowed her to see the helplessness of some of the soldiers who felt they had no choice. And, the fear of the crowd as they thought if they did not openly defy Jesus' teachings, they would meet the same fate of death upon the cross as He did. She was able to understand the lack of self-control many of these people felt, as they were heavily ruled by merciless religious leaders at the time.  Her sorrow in this situation was not just for the death of her son, but also for how helpless and lost these people were. And within this empathetic sorrow, she also witnessed hope that her son's teaching and humbled example in life and in death, others would find their own way to Enlightenment in the future.

Empathy begins with the ability to ask the question"why?" – this cognizant questioning, allows us to understand the situation not as it appears, but the substance as to what created this situation to begin with (past life karma, personal issues, misunderstanding). It is being self-aware enough to ask ourselves when met a conflict "why is he acting this way?" instead of solely focusing on ourselves at that moment. Being empathetic allows us to consciously react to situations appropriately so that we do not in turn make ourselves indebted to others through negative karma, whilst strengthening our resolve to go forth towards Enlightenment. It does not create an excuse, but rather a reason and opportunity for us to guide others into Enlightenment; by understanding their situation, we can better help them. Or, we can simply lead by example by not falling into the trap of negative karma, which may cause them to question their actions through our reaction.

Empathy is the crossroad between humanity and spirituality – it allows us look beyond our own physical existence so that can open our minds even further into the world of spiritual Enlightenment. And so it is said, that the opposite of negativity and chaos is not just simply calmness, but it is empathy.