A few words from Pierre
on compassion
Loving in action and in truth
Indeed, if compassion implies empathy with the one who suffers, it is not philanthropy. It is love, it is completely different, it is truly the love of the Lord! This heart moved by compassion is a gift. It is the Lord who gives it to us because he is touched to see that we take care of the poor, of those who suffer and who are closest to his Heart
"From Prayer Group to Community" sessions in Paray 05-09/07/79
When we say that we must love in deed and in truth, it is true. We must not remain saying “Lord, Lord”, but we must act, loving in deed, but also in truth; that is the essential!
Fraternity of Jesus Retreat 08/79 First teaching
If we want to meet Jesus, let's go meet the sick. We are sure to be in the truth! On the last day, we will be judged on love
"From Prayer Group to Community" sessions in Paray 05-09/07/79
Lord, during this night when I am going to be in my nice bed, I pray to you for all those who have had all their blankets and clothes taken away and who are obliged to sleep on a wet slab in the cold of a dungeon. Lord, do not let them suffer too much and give them the strength
Community Weekend 04-05/04/81
“Lord, look at all the people in the city who do not know you, who live without knowing you!” Then we feel impelled to proclaim the name of Jesus.
"From Prayer Group to Community" sessions in Paray 05-09/07/79
It not only reflects on the moods or feelings of all those who are suffering, but it also gives you a practical way to then say, “Well, I have to do something concrete to help my brothers.” So it’s not a flight, it’s a commitment.
Community Weekend 21/06/81
You’ll tell me that it’s childish, that you’re all perfect people, that everything is going great. So, if it’s going so well, your group should work! It’s just that there is this lack of love… And it’s not techniques! If there is no love, it’s like if there is no gas in a car: you can do whatever you want, it won’t work. If you go to see the sick and if, during the week, you pray for them together, you carry the same burden together… Then, at that moment, you won’t think about Mrs. Unetelle who has a crooked hat, and the other one who said something to me…
"From Prayer Group to Community" sessions in Paray 05-09/07/79
Have love for one another! And to have love for one another, go to the most unfortunate, the poorest, the most needy!
"From Prayer Group to Community" sessions in Paray 05-09/07/79
You’ll tell me that it’s childish, that you’re all perfect people, that everything is going great. So, if it’s going so well, your group should work! It’s just that there is this lack of love… And it’s not techniques! If there is no love, it’s like if there is no gas in a car: you can do whatever you want, it won’t work. If you go to see the sick and if, during the week, you pray for them together, you carry the same burden together… Then, at that moment, you won’t think about Mrs. Unetelle who has a crooked hat, and the other one who said something to me…
"From Prayer Group to Community" sessions in Paray 05-09/07/79
It’ s really to go to the others, to understand that all the distresses that come to us, it is Jesus who comes to us. And therefore, we must go to Him through our brothers.
"From Prayer Group to Community" sessions in Paray 05-09/07/79
When we are in contact with misery, with suffering, with darkness, and we see brothers and sisters who are suffering, then our hearts are moved with deep, real and concrete compassion. And [we] ask the Lord in love to help these brothers, so that we really begin to burn with love. And at that moment we really live in love.
Fraternity of Jesus Christmas 80 Retreat Teaching 1
Love is not voluntarism, it is not activism, it is not going to the poor, going to care for the poor, going to care for the sick. It is really having a heart moved by compassion. And this heart moved by compassion is a gift, a charism. It is not us who make it, it is the Lord who gives it to us because He is touched to see that we take care of the poor, that we take care of those who suffer and who are closest to His heart. If we want to meet Jesus, where can we meet him? In the sick, because He says: “You have done it to Me. Then at that moment, you are happy! You are sure to be in the truth. On the last day, we will be judged on love.
"From Prayer Group to Community" sessions in Paray 05-09/07/79
There are always people who are suffering, who are sick, who are unhappy, who are sad. So we pray and we go to see one or two people: we have compassion, we have a spirit of compassion. But this compassion is not a human compassion!
"From Prayer Group to Community" sessions in Paray 05-09/07/79
Let compassion transform you
When we begin to have our hearts taken by compassion, we are transformed little by little. And there is truly a power of the Lord, a blessing of the Lord
"From Prayer Group to Community" sessions in Paray 05-09/07/79
But there are also times when the Lord says to you, “But my poor old man, you absolutely must pray for such and such a soul, you must pray for such and such a suffering person, for all the very great sufferings.” And that puts Him in the depths (of our) heart. And the hour of prayer, and the hours of prayer pass quickly because we are with the Lord. We say, “Jesus, I pray for such and such a soul.” We have an intensity of love that transforms us.
Fraternity of Jesus Paray summer 83 retreat. Teaching 24/07/83
"Emmanuel" inter-assembly day 13/03/76
We say to the Lord: "You must open my heart...". And little by little,
the Lord shows his face inside the person.
"From Prayer Group to Community" sessions in Paray 05-09/07/79
Compassion is not only for the sick, but also for each other: for those around us, for others who do not always think well of us. It gives a compassionate love, and really a love. It makes us melt.
Fraternity of Jesus Retreat 08/79 First teaching
Fraternity of Jesus Retreat. August 78 09/08/78 Afternoon.
When you start to take care of the sick and you start to have your heart really taken by compassion, you are transformed little by little. And there is really a power of the Lord there, there is a blessing of the Lord. […]
Jesus said, “You will always have poor people around you.” Well, the poor are the sick, and it’s all those in the psychiatric hospitals now, those who have anxieties, those who are not taken care of because they say it’s ridiculous, that they just have to react… So if you really think about going with a neighbor to see the sick, well, little by little, your heart will melt and you will become full of love. And you will hear the motions of the Spirit, and you will listen to the Lord.
"From Prayer Group to Community" sessions in Paray 05-09/07/79 05/07/79
Those who, gently in their hearts, pray to the Lord, pray for those who suffer and care for each other, well, those are transformed, and those change their hearts and gain eternal life. They are the ones who, by dying, have succeeded in their lives. [Because they found Jesus who died for them, and they really wanted to die for others, to save the world. So that’s really profound… and it’s really true. So it’s not easy but it’s exciting and we can do it with each other.
Cycle of youth weekends 23-24/01/82
Ask for compassion
If we do not love one another, we are liars. You can’t love God if you don’t love your neighbor, you all know that, but you must never forget it!
Community Weekend 01/04/79
There is a neighbor who is not well, and nobody takes care of her. She is a lady who is not very nice: you can go and see her! If two or three of you go to see her, if you pray beforehand and say: “Lord, you really need to touch her heart”… you’ll be amazed [to see] how you’ll be received. If you do that, you really have a spirit of love: you have a warmth in your heart and at that moment, joy enters you, you want to praise, do you understand?
"From Prayer Group to Community" sessions in Paray 05-09/07/79 05/07/79
We must ask the Lord every day of our lives to give us
this burning fire for the conversion of sinners
Community Weekend 25/01/81
Let us ask the Lord to burn with love for our brother sinners. My little sacrifices, take them in your Love, transform them with your strength to convert sinners.
Community Weekend 25/01/81
Let us ask for this grace of compassion, because we do not always have this grace ourselves, it is something that is given.
Fraternity of Jesus Retreat. August 78 09/08/78 Afternoon.
"Emmanuel" inter-assembly day 13/03/76
So let us pray and let our hearts be inflamed with love! Then, we have a different look for the brothers. And the Lord leads us to such and such a person whom we did not think of or did not see, but it is the Lord who leads us. And the Lord suffers in such and such a person, or suffers with such and such a person, and really the Lord shows us. And we say, “But how, Lord, can I be so blind as not to realize that there was this person near me and that I should take care of him?” And in the small countries where we are, we are much closer to each other, we know each other and we can really see someone who can be helped. So really, let’s do it because it’s a grace for us, it’s them helping us. By supporting them, they enrich us and allow us to “remain in this Love”.
Fraternity of Jesus Retreat. August 78 09/08/78 Afternoon.
Therese of the Child Jesus was next to a dying sister and she had no compassion at all. She had a dry, dry, dry heart. But a dry heart outwardly: she didn’t “feel” anything. But she had the will to wish her well, to love her. And she said, “Well, I’m like that, I’ll stay with…” She didn’t worry at all about what was happening to her. She was in the dryness? she was in the dryness; she was in the feeling? she gave thanks to the Lord. She was always peaceful because she said: “I trust in him, he is everything to me, and then I try to do what I can.
Community Weekend 01/04/79
Because, you know, when people are sick, with more or less voluntary [helpers]: they absolutely kill the sick by trying to be nice to them. Well, it’s like we do with the Holy Spirit when we want to do… act, act, act to act. Then everything becomes blurred… So you have understood well: follow the Spirit by which we must do things!
"from prayer group to community" Paray sessions 06/07/79
It is important… to ask Mary who lives at the foot of the Lord’s Cross, who suffers and who is constantly compassionate with Him. She teaches us to sympathize. This compassion is when we make these small sacrifices for sanctification, for the conversion of souls.
Community weekend 20/09/81
[To have] this spirit of compassion, one must have a pierced heart… It is not we who will have it ourselves, it is necessary to ask Mary truly that we have a pierced heart…
"Emmanuel" inter-assembly day 13/03/76
The model of compassion we have in Mary.
Only Mary can teach us that.
"Emmanuel" inter-assembly day 13/03/76
Mary is compassion. It is really her, because the Son was suffering and it was said that the Mother was next to him and was suffering. So it was really compassion: she suffered with it.
"Emmanuel" inter-assembly day 13/03/76
Then you will tell me that it is not quite obvious for us to suffer and save souls, and to be very happy! But it is given to us by this love of charity. It doesn’t come from us, it comes from the Lord. And we really have to have this enormous and confident faith, to ask the Lord to increase our faith and to give us this love of compassion.
Fraternity of Jesus Retreat 08/79 First teaching
I tell you this very deeply. You must really pray especially saying: “Lord, show yourself to me, manifest yourself to me, inflame me, burn me, consume me with your Love, so that we can set the earth on fire.”
Fraternity of Jesus Christmas 82 Retreat 12/30/82
From adoration to compassion
God wants to replace our heart of stone with his Heart burning with love, to communicate to us his ardent desire to save souls… For this He wants to touch our heart with His Love, to pierce it, to break it. Discovering our misery, we enter into his Mercy. [In adoration, Jesus wants to give us the compassion of his Heart, the sweetness of his Heart. He breaks our pride, our self-will, puts us in his school: “Jesus, gentle and humble of heart, make our hearts like yours.”
Preparatory notes for a teaching 24/06/80
The truth is often that we are in a drought because we are perhaps not in compassion. […] It is obvious that, normally, from adoration our heart must be open and, really, we must sympathize. That is what is important.
Community Weekend 21/06/81
Jesus is in agony until the end of the world.
It is not a time to sleep!
Fraternity of Jesus Paray summer 83 retreat. Teaching 24/07/83
We are in adoration: we find compassion, because He suffers terribly, poor Jesus! So we wake up, we keep awake, we keep ourselves. We are not voluntarists but we have a “not lazy” attitude.
Fraternity of Jesus Retreat. August 78 09/08/78 Afternoon.
In the compassion of worship, we must say to the Lord, “Here we pray to you for them who do not pray to you and do not know how to pray to you.” So you see at that point the drought disappears pretty quickly because we understand how much of a cosmic drama we are in; there is an intense spiritual battle. So I think that some people who have difficulties in prayer, well, they may not have fully understood the intensity of this battle. Of this battle which is a battle of love. You each pray in your own way. But if you are in dry periods and you are bored or you don’t know what to do, you are upset or whatever, well, you dive into this compassion, into the Love of the Lord; and you ask Mary who is the mother of compassion really, to teach you this compassion.
Community Weekend 21/06/81
Meeting Jesus who suffers
(Therese) When she was fifteen, she saw a picture of Jesus on the cross sticking out of her Mass book, with this phrase: “I thirst, I thirst for souls.” And she said, “I ask the Lord to make sacrifices to save souls.”
Community Weekend 04-05/04/81
Animated by this desire to participate in the salvation of souls, we understand the importance of praying for all those who rely on us: Let us ask the Lord to burn with love for our brother sinners
Community Weekend 25/01/81
(Speaking of Therese of the Child Jesus who suffered a lot, he said:) But she was so happy to save souls! She really had the fire of love in her. So what we must ask for is this fire of love, a fire infinitely greater than the sufferings
Fraternity of Jesus Christmas 80 Retreat
Lord, my little sacrifices, take them in your love,
transform them by your strength, to convert these sinners.
Community Weekend 25/01/81
When there is such a deep love for the souls to be saved, there is such a joy in saving souls that one accepts the sufferings. It is also true: there is such suffering in thinking of souls that are lost, that are about to be lost, that other sufferings are nothing compared to them. This is the nature of love. For example, if her child suffers a lot, the mother would rather take the suffering of her little one and she would suffer less than to see her child suffer, you understand that. Well, the Lord gives a motherly heart to his saints. And this we can all experience little by little… This is given to us first of all through humility. We must first make ourselves very small and then, little by little, the Lord grows us. And then it is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit transforms us by this fire that He has in Him, that He communicates to us.
Fraternity of Jesus Paray summer 83 retreat. Teaching 24/07/83
You have to say, “Lord, I really beg you, save these souls.” And if you pray without ceasing, you will succeed in helping. We really need to fight for this together, to mobilize. And the goal of Emmanuel, God with us, is really, together, to fight and to say: “Lord, these are your troops. We need to help you fight this demon that is invading everything.”
Community weekend 30-31/05/81
"Emmanuel" inter-assembly day 13/03/76
Community Weekend 25/01/81
So, says Peter, we must redouble our prayers and small sacrifices so that conversions will abound and France and Europe will be transformed… and, (he adds elsewhere), the whole world! Amen! Hallelujah!
Community Weekend 18/12/82
Meeting Jesus who suffers
It is really to go to others, to understand that all the distresses that come to us, it is Jesus who comes to us. And therefore, we must go to Him through our brothers.
"Emmanuel" inter-assembly day 13/03/76
We’re in a drought. So let’s say: “Jesus is a sick man. Well, let’s say: “Jesus is a sick man. He lives in the dark. [We can’t hear him, he’s so tired, he can’t speak, he’s in agony. So He is there and then we stay close to Him. We are bored but we shouldn’t be bored because He is suffering. So we are taken with compassion. We say to him: “Lord, don’t leave me with such a hard heart, let me [have] a little compassionate heart. Let me live with you, let me love you!”
Community Weekend 01/04/79
If we want to meet Jesus, let's go meet the sick. We are sure to be in the truth! On the last day, we will be judged on love
This morning I felt in my heart that Jesus is there, suffering next to us. We cannot have the same attitude in our life when we have a very sick person in our home, a very suffering person. You don’t look so downcast, … but you suffer, it’s obvious… So it changes our life.
Fraternity of Jesus Retreat. August 78 09/08/78 Afternoon.
Jesus is in agony until the end of the world. It is not a time to sleep!
Fraternity of Jesus Paray summer 83 retreat. Teaching 24/07/83
We are in adoration: we find compassion, because He suffers terribly, poor Jesus! So we wake up, we keep awake, we keep ourselves. We are not voluntarists but we have a “not lazy” attitude.
Fraternity of Jesus Retreat. August 78 09/08/78 Afternoon.
Love is not voluntarism, it is not activism, it is not going to the poor, going to care for the poor, going to care for the sick. It is really having a heart moved with compassion. And this heart moved by compassion is a gift, a charism. It is not us who makes it, it is the Lord who gives it to us because he is touched to see that we take care of the poor, that we take care of those who suffer and who are closest to his heart. If we want to meet Jesus, where can we meet him? In the sick, because He says: “You have done it to Me. Then at that moment, you are happy! You are sure to be in the truth. On the last day, we will be judged on love.
"From Prayer Group to Community" sessions in Paray 05-09/07/79 05/07/79
So then we really need to have that heart saying to the Lord over and over again, “But save the world!” And if we really have those compassionate souls with a truly pierced heart that the Lord will give us, then at that point we will start to become instrumental. You know, that good Curé d’Ars used to say, “It’s not because we go and talk to people, that we’ve comforted them well, that it’s of any use, until we’ve suffered for them.” […] So, if we don’t really have that pierced heart, well, we’re off the mark. When we get up there, (the Lord) will say to us, “Really my poor fellow, you’ve been agitating a lot, you’ve been pretending to do something but it was the others who were praying and getting everything that you seemed to think you were getting yourself.” It’s going to be nothing, do you see? So that’s really essential. And also, it’s joyful! )
"Emmanuel" inter-assembly day 13/03/76
If we start praying in the evening, saying: “Lord, during this night when I am going to be in my nice bed resting, I pray to you for all those who have had all their blankets and clothes taken away and who are forced to sleep on a wet slab in the cold of a dungeon. Lord, make sure they don’t suffer too much, and give them strength…” So we help them. And that’s exactly what the Lord says: “I was naked and you clothed me.” That can be very good spiritually, not just humanly. “I was in prison and you visited me.” Well, we can visit them through prayer since we can’t go there, if we really pray for them. […]
So we really have to get into prayer and the Lord doesn’t say to us when we get up there, “I was naked and suffering in prison, what did you do for me? – But Lord, when did we see you suffer? – Well when it was happening to my brothers.” This is important because it’s concrete stuff, it’s not imagination. […] We are concerned and we can pray for them. […] We can pray and suffer a little. Not big sacrifices but small sacrifices; let us do this together.
Community Weekend 04-05/04/81
When you start seeing a guy with cancer, and then a kid with cancer, and then this… you’re absolutely crushed. You think: “But this is terrible! I can’t take it anymore…” Whereas, if we think that we are incapable of doing anything but that it is the Lord who died for us all and that He knows us all and that He suffers for us, then we are useless servants and, like children, we say: “You know, so-and-so has a boo-boo, so what can you do for him?” We do simple things. And the conclusion is that we are not traumatized by these sufferings: we carry them peacefully in our hearts and we offer them to Jesus. We say to him: “Jesus, you see everything, you can do everything; the one you love is sick. And then that’s it. And then we go home. But you have done something, you have not spent your time doing nothing or being crushed.
"From Prayer Group to Community"
sessions in Paray 05-09/07/79
05/07/79
