The Latin origin means "to suffer together." Now there's a high and holy calling.
The disease of leprosy actually doesn't make your fingers and toes fall off. At least not directly. What it does do is kill nerves; you gradually lose more and more of your sense of touch. You can't feel it when you bump into things, or even other people. You can get hurt and never know it, bump into other people and never know that you've hurt them, either.
Leprosy in the Bible is a symbol of sin. It's as though sin deeply involves numbness, often by choice, sometimes by circumstance, but never by God's design.
I think maybe in America we've become a nation of emotional lepers. It isn't that there aren't some people doing "compassionate" things; it's that mostly our culture disallows the whole idea of suffering together with someone else. I mean, I'm talking tears and wails. Protracted, not temporary. Perhaps if we shared suffering, we might delve further into God's assignments to us, redeeming the whole world one soul at a time, like the rabbinical idea of tikkun olam.
Lord, give me passionate compassion.
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"Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.'" (Matthew 9:35-38)
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