The verb that our modern translations render as "to pity", "to be moved by compassion" is splanchnizesthai, a Greek word formed from the noun splanchna, "the viscera" (cf. Acts 1:18). The verb then connotes an emotion accompanied by a strong visceral movement. Jesus' pity or compassion therefore is something physical. It is what he feels for the crowds who follow him (Mt. 9:36; 14:14; 15:32||Mk. 8:2), the blind and the leper who ask for healing (Mt. 20:34; Mk. 1:41), and the widow whose only son has just died (Lk. 7:13).
In two of his parables, the compassion of a father (Lk. 15:11-32) and that of the good Samaritan (Lk. 10:25-37) become his challenges to the scribes and Pharisees to understand the real demands of righteousness, a demand enshrined in the words "It is mercy I desire, not sacrifice" (Hos. 6:6, cf. Mt. 9:13; 12:7)
The noun splanchna from which the verb derives is used by Paul to designate the affection of Christ (Phil 1:
and the kind of attitude Christians must have (Col. 3:18, Phil. 2:1). John , too, reminds his community to love and never to close up their "splanchna" towards the poor (1 Jn. 3:7).
Christ confers on the whole of the Old Testament tradition about God's mercy a definitive meaning. Not only does he speak of it and explain it by the use of comparisons and parables, but above all he himself makes it incarnate and personifies it. He himself, in a certain sense, is mercy. To the person who sees it in him—and finds it in him—God becomes "visible" in a particular way as the Father "who is rich in mercy." John Paul II, Dives in Misericordia
