Then, the most wonderful thing happened. Using the introduction and then the marvelous passage from the apostle Paul's hymn to Christ, Henri changed my understanding of the Christian faith forever. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. Then Henri told us that in this Gospel passage we find the essence of the Christ and the nature of compassion.
Compassion means to suffer with another.
Henri's explanation of incarnational theology, where the Word became flesh to dwell among us, became alive for me as it never had before. In relating how Jesus humbled himself and took the form of a servant, he drew me into an awareness of my own vocation. My own meager attempt to be present for another was essentially what the movement of compassion was all about. It wasn't flashy, it wasn't attention-grabbing, it was just being available to needs whenever and wherever they presented themselves. Henri described the compassionate life as a three-stage movement from solitude to displacement to discipleship.