Spiritual Thought: Sympathy/Antipathy

In my colloquies after meditation, there is often a thought that stays with me. Sometimes it is a clear message that came in prayer, sometimes it is a summary of what I experienced; a "spiritual thought" to take and carry through the day. Sometimes they seem transitory, but sometimes they recur and surface repeatedly during a period of days, weeks, or months.

One such thought concerns sympathy and antipathy in relationships. Here I do not mean sympathy in the sense of feeling sorry for someone but rather in the word's primitive sense of "feeling with" them, being "in synch" or "on the same wavelength," and antipathy as the opposite of this.

Every person has this experience: there are people we sense a connection with or identify with  strongly; wet find them easy to get along with and that they understand our thoughts and experiences with minimal explanation. There are other people who we do not feel this connection with; sometimes it seems they do not understand us with any amount of explanation and attempts to relate to them can be exasperating. We encounter both types in all situations of life: school, work, church, and even family.

I was struggling with this realization a couple of weeks ago and how it is manifested in religious community: the temptation to develop particular friendships or "cliques." I considered this and how it can be presented as a false charity: a convenient way to keep everyone happy by avoiding conflicts and uncomfortable situations, but leading to the far more sinister prospect of a fractured and dysfunctional community. (This is something Pope Francis has addressed several times, even very recently, and strongly cautioned against).

I took this to prayer and had a strong confirmation:
"I have given you the sympathetic for your edification, but the antipathetic for your perfection."

This gave me new terms for my reflection, and I further considered how both types of relationship are necessary: I have those sympathetic to me with whom I can relate more easily when I am tired and frustrated because I need the comfort of feeling understood and being encouraged; I have those antipathetic to me who stretch me and make me work hard to develop deep relationships. It is through the latter, not the former, that I am invited to grow in the perfection of charity.