Moved with Compassion: Reflections of a Roman Catholic Woman Priest

” YHWH (our Loving God) you are gracious and compassionate,

slow to anger and rich in love.

YHWH you are good to all and compassionate to all your creatures.” Psalm 145:8-9 TIB.

“How you love justice, YHWH!

You are always on the side of the oppressed….

You are tender and compassionate, YHWH...” Psalm 103:6,8

We are so blessed. Compassion is the very nature of God, our Creator, our Father/Mother. And it is the nature of Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the Living God who has sent the Holy Spirit to convict us about and show us God’s work here on earth AND TO ENABLE US TO DO THIS LOVING WORK.

The story of the widow of Nain is a passage that reveals Jesus’ compassion to us and it is one of my favorite New Testament passages.

Jesus, followed by a huge crowd enters the city of Nain.

“As he approached the town gate a dead person was being carried out-the only son of his mother, and she was a widow….”‘ When Jesus saw her, “his heart went out to her and he said ,”don’t cry”. Then he went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said, “Young man,I say to you,get up”! The dead man sat up and began to talk and Jesus gave him back to his mother. They were all filled with awe, and praised God…they said “God has come to help his people”. This news about Jesus spread…” ” Luke 7:11-17 (NIV).

Unlike some of the Gospel stories about Jesus’ healing where people reach out to touch Jesus literally and figuratively, here, it is Jesus who is moved by what he saw, and Jesus who reached out to the grieving and hopeless woman. Jesus, whose heart is made of compassion could not bear her grief and desperation for surely she had no means now of caring for herself. Jesus comforts her and then restores the life of her son. She did not need to know him or even to ask him. He knew her and her great pain and gently reached out to her. It is no wonder that the crowd felt that God was visiting them. Indeed, God was!

Oh, how good it is to know that even when we don’t have the words to pray because we hurt so much, God is there, God knows our hurt and our needs, and God will reach out with comfort and with what we need to survive. Oh, how blessed we are.

It is important to note that there are many places in the Gospels where Jesus is moved with compassion, or teaches about compassion. For example, Matthew 14:14; Mark 1:41, 6:34, 8:2 and Luke 7:13. In some places he is amazed that although God has shown us such great compassion that we are not so compassionate with others. Indeed, we may pass by on the other side like the priest and religious men who left the beaten man on the side of the road while a non-Jew, a Samaritan, tended to him compassionately (Luke 10:25-37). Jesus defines this beaten and dying man as our neighbor and asks for our compassion: “Go and do likewise.”

What moves you? What touches your heart and soul? What opens your heart to others?

For, to minister to those who Jesus loves, to do likewise, we need to see what is before us with the eyes of Jesus.

Sometimes the days come and go and it is almost by rote that we go through them. We finish our work. We follow schedules that order our lives. We attend to those in our families and seek our creature comforts. And so the days pass by, one folding into the other.

And yet, on occasion, we look up and see with new eyes. Our hearts and minds experience something or someone that moves us out of ourselves and our routines to really seeing and responding to someone else or something else. We are truly moved-to regard, to love, to give of ourselves, to reach out, to attend to that which is compelling. We are filled with compassion. And God’s love pours through us to reach the needs of others.

My life’s work, calling, was revealed to me one late night in the early 1980’s after a long day of teaching at NYU School of Social Work in the heart of Greenwich, Village, New York City. I had been a social worker for many years, and a Professor of Social Work for 5-6 years then. I loved social work practice and I loved teaching it. But this was to be a calling within the call to “help others”, especially the most marginalized. To walk to work every day I passed through Washington Square Park and the park was increasingly filled with homeless men and women sleeping on the benches and living in the park. As I walked through the park I sometimes talked with some of its residents. My heart was uneasy because of them. This night I could not sleep so I got up and read my Bible as I often did. Jesus’ own “call” in Luke 4:14-21 pierced my heart.

Jesus was teaching in the Synagogue in Nazareth and a scroll of Isaiah was handed to him to read. “Unrolling it, he found the place where it is wtritten:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

Because he has anointed me

to preach good news to the poor….

to release the oppressed,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

“Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

I placed my head on the Bible on my desk and stretched my hands out before me and prayed. When I finished the tearful prayer, I knew that I was called to minister to the homeless. The faces in the park appeared to me and I knew what I had to do. I did not know how I would do it, but I went to sleep knowing what I was called to do. The next day I mobilized my friends at NYU to join me in exploring how we could respond to the homeless before us. For my part, I located the two nearby women’s Shelters and volunteered my time there. The rest is history-serving the homeless became the rest of my life. My move to the University of Connecticut SSW in 1984 continued that work and I was blessed to join my life with Judy Beaumont who was the Director of My Sister’s Place, a four tiered shelter for homeless women, and families and men in 1988. Our move to Florida in 1998 continued that work and allowed us to do it full time. However hard it often was, we loved our work with the homeless and poor here.

In 2008, I was ordained a Roman Catholic Woman Priest and Judy Beaumont and I developed Good Shepherd Ministries of Southwest Florida to serve the homeless and poor in Fort Myers. ( She was ordained a Roman Catholic Woman Priest in 2012.) In 2010 I wrote a book about this compelling work entitled COME BY HERE: CHURCH WITH THE POOR, (Judith A.B. Lee) and it is available on Kindle. In this work we received so much more than we gave, and the ministry continues.

A picture of some leaders in our Good Shepherd Community: Our Deacon, Hank Tessandori stands between Ann Palmer and Pastor Judy Beaumont, both now home with God. Judy Alves, Harry Gary and Phyllis Williams are to my right.

Above: Carol Schauf and I celebrate Brenda Cummings’ birthday last week. Brenda, in the middle standing, has been with Good Shepherd since 2008.

As you identify what moves you, and how you might give of yourself and your goods to help others you will find answers for you based on your own uniqueness and gifts. there are so many ways to give back to our loving God. So what moves you?

My dear Cousin Jackie Marion is moved by the plights of animals who are to be euthanized unless caring people step up and donate to keep their care going, or, to adopt them. She was on fire when she described her mission for the animals to me. And, she was happy to be retired now so she could devote herself to this mission. She said “”…Now that I am retired I found my dream and purpose”. So all of the energy she devotes to fund raising and following animals in trouble, to donating and raising public awareness is a great joy to her. And many of the the dear pets, both dogs and cats, remain alive because of her compassion. She volunteers for several animal serving agencies, but mainly for Friends of Cumberland County AnimalS , North Carolina. She pledges for them and shares on Facebook and elsewhere. She found her calling and she said a resounding YES! And she is full of joy!

Below -One of the dogs Jackie helped to get into a No-Kill Rescue Shelter where she can live until adopted !!! Way to go Friends of Cumberland County AnimalS and Jackie!

God loves all of Creation and all Creatures great and small. Thanks be to God!

I am sure God is delighted when an animal’s life is saved.

Below Jackie, in the middle is with her husband Mike and me.

And I also know that God is delighted when each of us finds our own way to serve creation with compassion.

May God bless you as you discover your own callings and gifts.

Rev. Dr. Judy Lee,RCWP

Good Shepherd Ministries Fort Myers, Florida