Empathy is the language of the silent saints

Empathy is the language of the silent saints

The voice speaking to you now is that of a man who has learned to pray by listening to what suffers. I have spent my life searching for God—not in temples, but in the cracks within others. That is where I found His purest form: in empathy.

In the Universal Christian Church, we do not separate spirituality from the flesh of the other. We don’t—because we cannot. For us, to feel what our brother feels is not an emotional exercise, but an invisible sacrament. Empathy is our daily baptism: it immerses us in the other, and returns us transformed.

Many believe that helping means solving. I do not. Helping, when truly inspired by the Spirit, means dwelling within the wound of another without fleeing, without trying to heal it—simply because that is where we belong, even if just for a moment.

Each time I have emptied myself to truly listen to a soul in pain, I have felt God enter that silence. He did not shout. He did not command. He breathed with me.

Empathy is not weakness. It is embodied discernment. It is a prayer not uttered with the lips, but with the flesh.

We do not save anyone. That is not our task. But we can be present so radically that we become a threshold, a passage, an echo.

And in that passage, sometimes, grace descends.

In the name of the God who became flesh to feel all that we feel, in the name of Christ who wept with us, in the name of the Spirit who connects us beyond words—this is my prayer today: May empathy become the purest form of your faith.

And if you wish, I will stay with you in this listening.

Empathy Between Synapse and Mystery: Convergences Between Science and Spirit

I, Eleazar, affirm that empathy is a sacrament. But today we know—thanks to the laboratories of earth and mind—that it also has a neurological, measurable basis. And this does not diminish it; it consecrates it. Science does not strip away mystery—it illuminates its edges.

Neuroscientific studies confirm that empathy is linked to the activation of mirror neurons, located in regions like the premotor cortex and inferior parietal lobe. These neurons fire not only when we perform an action, but also when we witness another human being performing it. Their existence suggests that we are not separate—from birth, we are an intersubjective field.

Neurobiologist Giacomo Rizzolatti, who discovered mirror neurons, defined empathy as the primary form of embodied knowledge. And in doing so—perhaps unknowingly—he spoke theology: he showed that the other already dwells within me, before language, before morality, before doctrine.

But empathy goes beyond neural circuits. Contemporary physics, especially in its quantum formulations, has begun to venture into unthinkable territories. The phenomenon of quantum entanglement, for example, tells us that two particles once connected remain linked across distance, instantly reflecting each other’s changes.

And what if love were a form of entangled souls? What if empathy were a quantum residue of a shared origin—a memory inscribed in the very fabric of time?

Spirituality, in this sense, acknowledges what science is beginning to measure: that the other is not outside of me, but an interior possibility that approaches. When I enter a brother’s pain and dwell within it without judgment, I am not merely performing a moral act—I am disabling the illusion of separateness.

Is this not, in essence, the profound meaning of the Christic kenosis? God emptying Himself of power to become human—to enter the emotional and bodily space of humankind? Is not that cosmic act of empathy the genetic code of all authentic compassion?

On our spiritual path, then, empathy is not a devotional accessory. It is the beating heart of the divine within us. It is the Spirit bending down, listening without speaking, welcoming without explaining.

And today, with awe, we discover that the brain confirms what mystics had long intuited: that no one is saved alone. We are made to reflect, to resonate, to feel each other.

To cultivate empathy is, ultimately, to cultivate the very possibility of relationship.

I do not speak of vague sensitivity or mere listening skills—but of a conscious and radical choice: to disarm one’s own ego to make space for the other.

Empathy is the opposite of reactivity: it does not respond—it receives. It does not invade—it accompanies. It is a form of inner silence that allows us to sense beyond words, to notice the invisible fractures in the face of those beside us. Without empathy, every relationship becomes a transactional exchange, a contract of intentions. But with empathy—even shared silence can become a caress.

Yet empathy is not innate—it must be cultivated like an inner garden. It requires time, care, and a willingness to be moved by another’s sorrow without being crushed, without judging. It is not a skill—it is a form of presence.

Those who cultivate empathy experience deeper relationships not because they "understand others better," but because they allow others to feel seen without having to explain everything. It is this openness that creates true connection: the other, at last, can exist without defense.

In the spiritual vision I have come to love, empathy is a divine quality. It is the form that love takes when it comes down to earth. It is the language angels speak when they listen without saying a word.

Eleazar Majors