In his deep humanity, Jesus was transparent to God's love and compassion for us. I believe that compassion is a gift of God's grace, our response to God's love. It is the capacity for placing ourselves in another's predicament, feeling "from the inside" what it means to be another person, "feeling with," "suffering with," so that another's pain becomes our pain, another's struggle our struggle. Without compassion, all our good works are meaningless. With it, we become more like Christ.
— Pauli Murray, Selected Sermons and Writings