 As to the third proposition, the Christian would no doubt generally acknowledge it, but it seems to figure differently in Christian than in tragic compassion. It does not seem to be a major consideration in Mother Teresa’s compassion that the same thing might happen to her as has happened to her poor sufferers. The difference turns on the phrase “might happen.” It is part of Mother Teresa’s spiritual discipline — her self-cultivation in the Christian emotions — that she deliberately puts herself, as much as practicable, in the position of those she ministers to. Early in her ministry she had to be persuaded to provide herself and her fellow nuns a bit more food than the average Calcutta street person consumed, so as to maintain her health well enough to continue her ministry. In this aspiration to identify with sufferers she imitates Christ, who lowered himself to the status of a servant and died the death of a criminal, out of compassion for humanity. In the nervous “it might happen to me too” of tragic compassion there is an aloofness from the sufferer and his suffering that is absent in the most paradigmatic exemplars of Christian compassion.