Hi Tomi and all

According to Oxford English Dictionary:

Compassion:
1. Suffering together with another, participation in suffering; fellow-feeling, sympathy.

2. The feeling or emotion, when a person is moved by the suffering or distress of another, and by the desire to relieve it; pity that inclines one to spare or to succour.

3. Sorrowful emotion, sorrow, grief.

Sympathy:

1. a. A (real or supposed) affinity between certain things, by virtue of which they are similarly or correspondingly affected by the same influence, affect or influence one another (esp. in some occult way), or attract or tend towards each other.

b. Physiol. and Path. A relation between two bodily organs or parts (or between two persons) such that disorder, or any condition, of the one induces a corresponding condition in the other.

2. Agreement, accord, harmony, consonance, concord; agreement in qualities, likeness, conformity, correspondence.

3. a. Conformity of feelings, inclinations, or temperament, which makes persons agreeable to each other; community of feeling; harmony of disposition.

b. The quality or state of being affected by the condition of another with a feeling similar or corresponding to that of the other; the fact or capacity of entering into or sharing the feelings of another or others; fellow-feeling. Also, a feeling or frame of mind evoked by and responsive to some external influence.

c. spec. The quality or state of being thus affected by the suffering or sorrow of another; a feeling of compassion or commiseration.

d. In weakened sense: A favourable attitude of mind towards a party, cause, etc.; disposition to agree or approve.

Empathy:

The power of projecting one's personality into (and so fully comprehending) the object of contemplation.

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but rising every time we fall." Confucius