each other becomes the criteria for our final judgment. Again and again throughout the New Testament we are called to act justly, to treat our enemies as well as our friends with kindness, mercy, and respect.

The word compassion summarizes God's attitude towards us. We who hope to follow Christ must enter into this same attitude of compassion towards all creation. The compassionate one suffers with the other. When I am compassionate, your burdens and pains become my own, and we share a common experience. Rather than give you something outside of myself, I enter into your suffering, taking it upon myself. Only the compassionate person is able to bear another's burden and truly give of herself or himself. Through compassion, we can love the other; without it, love is not possible, and all of our charitable works are no more than the tinkling bell, the sounding gong.

Our goal on this page will be to provide a doorway into some of the suffering of the world, in the hopes of expanding our own sense of compassion, and as co-sufferers, seek solutions that bring mercy and hope to a wounded world. To begin, we offer some links to websites that focus on some major issues of social justice. Although we cannot be responsible for the content of these pages, nor can we endorse their content, we invite you to consider the issues they present, reading with an open heart and a discerning mind.

Links to web pages on social justice issues
 

We will also focus on some specific issues of social justice and the creative ways that our sisters and brothers have responded in compassion.
 

Compassion in Action: Focus on Hospitality

Perhaps you have wondered what it might be like to be without food, shelter, or other basic necessities of life. In a country like the US, it is easy to forget the many men, women and children who live on the street, eking out an existence from day to day. Some are fortunate enough to find shelter or a hot meal from time to time, enough to keep going for another day. But what would it be like to be welcomed in a house where guests and hosts are one? What would it be like to be the owner of such a home, a home without the walls of division? Recently I had the privilege of visiting two houses of hospitality, in Worcester, Massachusetts, which made me ponder questions like these. St. Francis and Therese House, offering food and short-term shelter for up to 6 people a night, is a Catholic Worker community, staffed by residents Scott and Clarice Schaeffer-Duffy. In the true spirit of Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker movement, they live in voluntary poverty, earning no salary, relying entirely on donations, as they have for the past 18 years. They have no budgets, no constitutions, no organized funding. It costs about $33,000 a year to maintain the house, and like all Catholic Worker houses, it is autonomous, although all embody the spirit of the movement in their own interpretation. Should they find themselves with a little more money than they need at the moment, instead of putting it away for hard times, they give it away to others with more immediate needs; nothing is saved, so that like the poor that they serve, they are always at the mercy of others' generosity and God's providence.

Becoming one with the poor seems to be a primary goal of Catholic Workers. They take to heart Christ's commission to find Him in our brothers and sisters, to treat them as we would treat Christ himself. And so the stranger is always welcomed, always treated with deep respect. The hungry are fed, the naked are clothed, the homeless are sheltered. Whenever possible, all needs are responded to. Yet perhaps more striking than these acts of mercy is the dignity acknowledged in each guest, for each bears the image of God.

Catholic Workers are sometimes criticized for not trying to change the lot of the guests, but the goal of the movement is more basic: it is simple hospitality. They ask no questions, demand nothing of those who come to eat, to rest, or to spend a night or two. And yet, a revolution is at work in this action of hospitality, what Dorothy called a "Revolution of the heart", as they try to melt hearts of evil, including their own. Such conversion of heart can only be possible when people live without the walls of division, without measuring and taking account of the differences that divide us, without using power, education, or money to keep ourselves safe from others. Scott and Clarice have found a way to welcome the stranger into their own home, into their lives, and they are clearly marked by this experience. They and their children live without fear in a house without locks because "the best lock is getting to know our neighbors." It is a radical life of following Christ, lived quietly, in the compassion we call hospitality.