Imagine the loneliness of a woman who has lost her husband. Then imagine that same woman losing her only child. The pain is indescribable. The real desolation would be deep and abiding. Human community is not always compassionate, but the large crowd who followed the funeral procession of the widow of Naïn (Luke 7:11-17) seems to have wanted to support her in her devastating loss. The village is Nein in Israel today, a Muslim town, with a Christian church built on the possible site of her house. The account does not emphasize any great faith she or her son may have had, but the compassion of Christ for a widow. The Greek word comes to us in medicine as splanchnic, meaning visceral or intestinal. It implies here a kind of sympathy that is physically felt deep within the bowels.
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