Mercy

“A frequent mistake about mercy, one which hides its mystery, is to believe that it is a mere subjective attitude. That kind of mercy is not terribly costly. To change one’s mind from seeking revenge to seeking the enemy’s good is to give up only a moral headache. But real mercy is more objective and more costly than that. It forgives debts that are objectively real, not subjectively imagined, debts that must be paid.

For mercy goes beyond justice, but does not undercut it. If I forgive you the one hundred dollar debt you owe me, that means I must use one hundred dollars more of my own money to pay my creditors. I cannot make you really one hundred dollars richer without making myself one hundred dollars poorer. If the debt is objectively real, it must be paid; and if it is my mercy that dismisses your debt, I must pay it. That is the reason why Christ had to die, why God could not simply say, ‘Forget it.’ He said, instead, ‘Forgive it.’ And that meant that if we did not pay it, He had to Himself.

Thus mercy is costly. Look what it cost God: the infinitely precious life of His own Son.

And that is no exception, no freak, but the paradigm of mercy; thus we can expect mercy to cost us something, too. Mercy is a minus.

That is the reason why it is paradoxical and surprising to hear Christ say that mercy is a plus, that the merciful are blessed.”
~Peter Kreeft