Sympathy is what we offer to people in moments of suffering. It lets people know that we are with them in the trials they face. Yet, sympathy can have a short shelf life. We return to our lives having satisfied our desire to visit someone in need, but we can go back to our routine not really affected by the visit. But then there is empathy. It is a word that expresses not just being with someone who suffers, but actually feeling the same emotions they are going through in a time of challenge. It is not just suffering with, “syn-pathos,” but “in-pathos,” connecting with another by experiencing their feelings. That distinction comes to mind as we often hear in the Gospels that the heart of Jesus is moved with pity. Recall how he is moved as he looks upon those flocking to him with pity, calling them lost sheep or when he “groaned in the spirit” at the death of Lazarus. Jesus does not just sympathize with human suffering; he connects with people by experiencing what they suffered. This is what made him so attractive and why people rushed to be with him. This is significant as we think about our own spiritual lives. We claim that Jesus is God-made-flesh. By showing empathy, he reveals how close God is to us. Not only is God with us in our suffering but God experiences our suffering, connects with us at that deep level of our humanity. It is precisely in our suffering, in our experience as mortal beings, that God is closest to us. It is where we experience the presence of the divine the most. Empathy, then, must be a core element of our spiritual life, part of our maturing as those made in the image and likeness of God. The more empathetic we are, the more we connect with people by sharing their sufferings, the more we are like God. So, too, the church must grow in empathy. In fact, this is what the church pledges to do in the documents of the Second Vatican Council as it claims to be linked with humanity and its history by the deepest bonds. “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the people of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed, nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts” (“Gaudium et Spes”). I write these words in the aftermath of the horrific attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump and the call of President Joseph Biden to lower the temperature of our political and civic discourse (see my statement below). One way we might achieve that would be for each of us to reflect on our need to connect with one another at the level of our common humanity as vulnerable, mortal beings. This terrible attack, not only on a former president but also on our very democratic norms, revealed how desperately in need of healing our nation is. In one tragic moment, we were reminded of our own vulnerability to our epidemic of violence. When even a former president is targeted, we cannot help but wonder: Who is safe from this scourge? It is time to connect with each other on this basic human level of our common vulnerability and suffering, and with empathy chart a new course for how we engage, and indeed love one another.