Let’s face it. Empathy for our children, colleagues, and neighbors is hard work. And empathy for our spouse? That’s a 24/7 arena in which many of us fall flat on our faces. Over and over again.

It doesn’t take either of us long to recall the last time we hammered the other with some big, tense question just at the moment that our beloved was at a low point—physically, emotionally, mentally (or all three!)—and in no position to respond well. You would think we would have learned better ways to interact by now!
 
Today the Church celebrates a remarkable woman who authored an entire book on empathy. Years before becoming a Catholic and a Carmelite nun, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) studied that special nexus that can arise between two people through empathy. And in the second week of the month—when we focus on Person & Relationships, or Level 2—we can’t think of a better tool than empathy to strengthen marriage. 
 
But first, the plain facts. We’re mired in our subjectivity. Our default state is “it’s all about me.” Ever since the Fall, we have struggled under our ego’s tyrannical rule. And today, given our culture’s idolatry of self, seeing the world from someone else’s perspective seems like a tall order indeed. 
 
But—there is profoundly Good News for all of us egotists! Jesus became incarnate. The Son of God did not save us from the outside, but rather by becoming man, by accompanying us in what we might call the ultimate act of empathy (the roots of the word literally mean “in” and “to suffer” or “feel”).

Edith Stein wrote, “The deeper one is drawn into God, the more one must ‘go out of oneself’; that is, one must go to the world in order to carry the divine life into it.” And so, infused with Jesus’ life in baptism, the Eucharist, and through practicing the virtues, we actually can transcend our subjectivity.

We can demonstrate empathy in our marriage. We can reflect the “image of God” that we bear, which is an image of the Trinity, of interpersonal communion and relationship. We can live in Christ and be renewed by the transforming of our minds.  
 
“Amid a culture of indifference,” Pope Francis encourages us, “which not infrequently turns ruthless, our style of life should instead be devout, filled with empathy, compassion and mercy, drawn daily from the wellspring of prayer.” 
 
So how do we pivot from our own chronic “problem of empathy” to the “promise of empathy”—of being, in word and deed, an empathetic husband or wife? What does this look like in daily life?
 
We’d like to hear what you’re discovering—so let us know—but here are three habits we’re working on in our marriage:   

• Pray and invoke the Holy Spirit. There is a freedom in admitting that, on our own, we tend to do a pretty bad job with empathy. It needs to be drawn from that “wellspring of prayer.” So, we try to begin the day with a prayer to the Holy Spirit, asking Him to shape our hearts for empathy.  

• Pause, breathe, and don’t rush. We interact with technology, a lot. Over time, this can bleed into how we interact with our spouse—expecting them to respond to us on our time, now. Instead, we are trying to think first about where the other is at—physically, emotionally, mentally—and practice a servant-leadership posture by not pushing our own agenda. 

• Link incremental growth in empathy to grace. As followers of Jesus, we don’t subscribe to a thin, pop-psychology brand of empathy that dead-ends in relativism. Instead, our empathy—as one dimension of our life of charity and evangelization—is rooted in our life in Christ.   

By God’s grace and some perseverance, every one of us can grow in this dimension of love for others. God has entrusted us with relationships—with our spouse, parents, children, siblings, colleagues, neighbors—and it is not much of a stretch to suggest that “good empathy” needs to be at their core.

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, pray for us!