"The surest way of discerning whether one has pity towards or compassion with another is to answer this question: Do you celebrate with this same person or these same people? Max Scheler, in his study on The Nature of Sympathy, takes for granted not only the fact that true "fellow-feeling" or compassion includes joy but also the fact that joy and celebration constitute the better half of the whole that compassion is about. He cites approvingly the German proverb, 'a sorrow shared is sorrow halved; joy shared is a joy doubled,' suggesting that it is 'one of the few proverbs which brooks examination from the moral point of view"; and he comments on the two directions of compassion. 'In respect of its quality as an emotional act, the purely ethical value of rejoicing is quite equal to that of pity. As a total act, however, it [rejoicing] contains more value, as such, than pity, for joy is preferable to sorrow. The value of its occurrence is likewise the greater, as evincing a nobler disposition, by the very fact of its greater liability to frustration through possible envy.' One is reminded of Jesus' expression of compassion as joy when he heard from his disciples that their preaching was being well received. 'The seventy-two came back rejoicing. "Lord," they said, "even the devils submit to us when we use your name.". . . It was then that, filled with joy by the Holy Spirit, he said, "I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children. Yes, Father, for that is what it pleased you to do." ' (Lk. 10. 17, 21)
"Compassion operates at the same level as celebration because what is of most moment in compassion is not feelings of pity but feelings of togetherness. It is this awareness of togetherness that urges us to rejoice at another's joy (celebration) and to grieve at another's sorrow. Both dimensions, celebration and sorrow, are integral to true compassion. And this, above all, separates pity from compassion for it is seldom that we would invite someone we had pity on to a common celebration. (Notice the preposition on as in 'patting one on the head.') Yet the passion-with of true compassion urges us to celebration.
"Celebration is a forgetting in order to remember. A forgetting of ego, of problems, of difficulties. A letting go. So too is compassion a letting go of ego, of problems, of difficulties, in order to remember the common base that makes another's suffering mine and in order to imagine a relief of that suffering. There can be no compassion without celebration and there will be no authentic celebration that does not result in increased compassionate energies. A person or a people who cannot celebrate will never be a compassionate people. And a person or a people who do not practice compassion can never truly be celebrating. Such people only wallow in superficial feelings of pious and pitiful energies.
"The Biblical teachings on compassion is not about pity as our culture understands that word. 'Israel has never regarded pity as mere condescension, but rather as a feeling of kinship with all fellow creatures.' Compassion is about what I have called feelings of togetherness, suspended egos, or the 'feeling of kinship with all fellow creatures.' This kinship in turn urges us to celebrate our kinship. Compassion, then, is about celebration."
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