Today I've been considering what it means to be a "compassionate" person in a way that is not condescending to those who may be suffering or enduring some type of hardship. I read recently that compassion and pity are two completely different things: compassion can be seen as putting ones self on the same level as the person enduring hardship with complete humility, not looking down on them but seeing ones self as their "equal" as one human being to another despite social class differences or race. Seeing another human being made in the image of God, loving them for who they are, this is compassion.
Pity on the other hand tends to be more of a degrading mindset, the one who pities often times looks down on that person from a higher positing, they see the other person as wretched, weak and miserable, they may offer them well meaning words but have no intention of lowering themselves or trying to see things from another’s point of view. The one who pities lacks humility, and simply feels sorry that the one being pitied has received such a wretched state in this life.