Compassion is still alive in the British legal system

So Jack Tweed, fiance of Jade Goody, is to have his curfew relaxed so that he can spend the night with Jade after their wedding this weekend.

Legally, Tweed is under curfew to return to his mother’s house, and he wears a tag to make sure he complies. But the restrictions on him are being relaxed. Why? Because Jade has only months to live, and is marrying Tweed this weekend. Initially it was reported that the curfew would not be lifted, so what has happened?

Well someone has acted with compassion. It’s a quality we see all too little of these days, and not something that forms a part of our legal system. Can compassion be codified? Not sure. But it can be defined. Here’s the definiton from answers.com “deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it.”

So here is compassion in action. In fact compassion doesn’t mean much unless it’s followed by action. Sadly, few of us have the power to act compassionately towards Jade and her fiance, but thankfully, someone with that power has used it well. It’s good to see that the legal system, necessarily rigid, can be relaxed when circumstances demand it.

Compassion is a quality that Jesus had. He saw suffering, and went out of his way (literally, sometimes) to relieve it. Now today, compassion is surely not just the preserve of Christians, but it’s a quality that was exemplified in Jesus himself, and it has come down to us largely through the Christian heritage we’ve enjoyed in this country for some 1500 years.

People may look at Jade and say, “well, where’s God’s compassion in this? Why does she have to go through this ordeal?

We don’t know the answer to that question, but we do know that Jesus went through an unfair ordeal himself. He died young, aged 33, not from the chance affliction of cancer, but at the hands of evil men. He knew what it was to die friendless and alone. And he did it voluntarily. He did it so that words like “compassion” might still be known today, and showed us how we too, in our day, can be compassionate to others.