Comfort the Afflicted

This post is from Day 6 of the Best Advent Ever by Dynamic Catholic. Click here to read it in its original form.

Everybody is going through something.

When you walk into a room, how do you decide who you are going to talk to? Most of us immediately look for our best friends, other people we know, or those who seem the most like us. We often flock to the person who looks like they are having the most fun, who is the most attractive, or the most popular. We even tend to seek out people who could be the most advantageous to our professional life.

What if we all lived our lives like Matthew Kelly’s friend Joe? What if every time we entered a room we looked for the complete stranger or the person who seemed the most unlike us? What if we flocked to the person who seemed the saddest, most nervous, or most disengaged from the rest of the group? What if we sought out the person who seemed to be in the most pain?

Who did Jesus socialize with? The most marginalized people in society—the sick, the poor, the despised, and sinners. He interacted with the people we avoid, ignore, and mindlessly pass on the street. He spent time with them. He comforted them. He eased their pain. And he recognized each one of them as a child of God.

Continue reading...