“it may sound strange to consider grief a way to compassion. But it is. Grief asks me to allow the sins of the world-my own included-to pierce my heart and make me shed tears, many tears, for them. There is no compassion without many tears…grief is the discipline of the heart that sees the sin of the world, and knows itself to be the sorrowful price of freedom without which love cannot bloom.”
- Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son
