Readings:
I - 2 Kings 4: 42-44
II - Eph. 4: 1-6
III - Jn. 6: 1-15
FROM EMPATHY TO EMANCIPATION
There are two categories of people, one, empathise and evade and the second, empathise and emancipate. The first category of people will sense, grasp and understand the situation but evade concretely responding to the situation. The second category of people not only sense, grasp and understand the situation but involve and act responsibly to combat and conquer the situation. Prophet Elijah in the first reading and Jesus the Prophet par excellence in the second reading belong to the second category of people. The crowds neither expressed their hunger not asked for bread. Moved with compassion and with the grace of God they were able to share twenty loaves and; five loaves and two fish respectively to their crowds with some left over as well. Elijah and Jesus never stopped with being compassionate, they moved from mere empathy to emancipation, relieving the crowds from their hunger, solely because of the awareness of the truth that they are the children of one God and the Father.
In the second reading, St. Paul in his letter to the Church at Ephesus exhorts the Christians to lead a life worthy of calling, holding fast to one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. We affirm this in our loving, caring, understanding, sharing and forbearing that results in compassion and empathy. God blesses every one of our step and effort towards liberation of the suffering humanity and sides us in emancipating the victim of suffering. Let us dare to fall into the second category of people though it is demanding, for that is the way of the Lord. When we go beyond empathy and try to emancipate the other we too become Prophet Elijah and Lord Jesus in the midst of the suffering humanity. May our mind resonate with the prayer: “Lord Jesus lead me from mere empathy to emancipation”.
