Every day, we see so much suffering around us that we feel powerless if we don't find some glimmer of humanity. Sometimes, however, the answer comes via WhatsApp, as happened in a small community in an Italian city that yearns to live in unity: "...At the hospital where I work, there's a young foreigner who is completely alone and dying. Perhaps someone could spend a few minutes with him, to bring a little dignity to this situation?"It's deeply impactful, and the responses are swift. The message from someone who was present in the last few hours reads: "At his bedside, we immediately saw that the care was punctual, attentive, and loving, and that therefore we had nothing concrete to do except be there. Not even he, already in a coma, could benefit from our presence." In vain? In those few hours, a small community, inside and outside the hospital, stood by and gave meaning. Who knows if a mother will be able to mourn him in her own country? Surely his "passing" was not in vain for those who were able to love that young man, who was no longer a stranger.

Compassion is a feeling that comes from within, from the depths of the human heart. It enables us to interrupt our own hectic day-to-day journey of commitments and appointments and take the initiative to reach out and offer a caring gaze, without fear of touching the wounds.

Chiara Lubich explains it with incisive simplicity: "Let's imagine we're in his situation and treat him as we would want to be treated in his place. Is he hungry? I'm hungry—let's think. And let's feed him. Is he suffering an injustice? I'm the one suffering it! And let's speak words of comfort to him, share his pain, and not rest until he is enlightened and relieved. We will slowly see the world change around us."[1]

African wisdom also confirms this with an Ivorian proverb: "He who welcomes a stranger, welcomes a messenger."

This idea offers us a key to achieving the most authentic humanism; it makes us aware of our common humanity, in which the innate dignity of every man and woman is reflected, and teaches us to courageously transcend the category of physical and cultural "closeness." From this perspective, it is possible to expand the boundaries of "we" to the horizon of "all" and rediscover the very foundations of social life. And it is important to take care of ourselves, with the help of the friends with whom we journey together, when we feel we are succumbing to the suffering that surrounds us. Remembering that—as psychiatrist and psychotherapist Roberto Almada says— "If the good abandon the battle because of fatigue, our common humanity will run the greatest risk: the impoverishment of values."[2].

[1] Chiara Lubich – L'arte di amare – p. 60
[2] R. Almada: “The burnout of the good Samaritan” – Effatà editrice-2016