This beautiful prayer by Mother Teresa articulates for me what pure compassion looks like. If it were shorter, I’d have it memorized. (But my spiritual hard drive has very little memory–thus, the post-its and clutter around my desk.)

Dear Jesus,
Help us to spread your fragrance everywhere we go.
Flood our souls with your Spirit and life.
Penetrate and possess our whole being so utterly
that our lives may only be a radiance of yours.
Shine through us and be so in us
that every soul we come in contact with
may feel your presence in our soul.
Let them look up and see no longer us but only Jesus.
Stay with us and then we shall begin to shine as you shine,
so to shine as to be light to others.
The light, O Jesus, will be all from you.
None of it will be ours.
It will be you shining on others through us.
Let us thus praise you in the way you love best
by shining on those around us.
Let us preach you without preaching
not by words, but by our example
By the catching force
the sympathetic influence of what we do
the evident fullness of the love our hearts bear to you.