Mercy
“Mercy, the specifically supernatural virtue, thus provides a touchstone more infallible perhaps than the test of any other virtue for a life conceived and molded in Christ. Hence, the question whether we have been merciful must play a decisive part in our examination of conscience. Many are the occasions for mercy which we miss. Only too often do we, as did the Pharisee, pass by a wounded one—clinging to our personal concerns, circumscribed by our lack of freedom.
Yet, the virtue by which we live hourly is precisely the one of which we ought to be most mindful. And the mercy of God is what we live by. It pervades our lives integrally; it is the primal truth on which the whole being of a Christian rests. ‘For His mercy endureth forever’ (Ps. 136:1). Indeed, the light of which the Psalmist says, ‘The light of Thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us’ (Ps. 4:6), is His mercy who ‘maketh His sun to rise upon the good and bad’ (Matt. 5:45) and who ‘spared not even His Son’ (Rom. 8:32) in order to redeem us.
The way to attain the virtue of mercy lies in our constant awareness of being encompassed by mercy: of the fact that mercy is the air we children of God are breathing. May the mercy of God, of whom the Church says: ‘With eternal love did the Lord love us, wherefore He drew us, raised from the earth, to His heart in commiseration’—may this mercy of God pierce and transform our hearts. May it draw us into the orbit of its all-conquering, liberating, suave power, before which all worldly standards collapse.
For according to the words of the Lord’s Prayer (‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us’), only insofar as we become merciful ourselves may we harvest the fruits of His mercy and taste, on a day to come, the last word of His mercy ‘that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard: neither hath it entered into the heart of man’ (1 Cor. 2:9).
‘Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.’”
~Dietrich von Hildebrand
Yet, the virtue by which we live hourly is precisely the one of which we ought to be most mindful. And the mercy of God is what we live by. It pervades our lives integrally; it is the primal truth on which the whole being of a Christian rests. ‘For His mercy endureth forever’ (Ps. 136:1). Indeed, the light of which the Psalmist says, ‘The light of Thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us’ (Ps. 4:6), is His mercy who ‘maketh His sun to rise upon the good and bad’ (Matt. 5:45) and who ‘spared not even His Son’ (Rom. 8:32) in order to redeem us.
The way to attain the virtue of mercy lies in our constant awareness of being encompassed by mercy: of the fact that mercy is the air we children of God are breathing. May the mercy of God, of whom the Church says: ‘With eternal love did the Lord love us, wherefore He drew us, raised from the earth, to His heart in commiseration’—may this mercy of God pierce and transform our hearts. May it draw us into the orbit of its all-conquering, liberating, suave power, before which all worldly standards collapse.
For according to the words of the Lord’s Prayer (‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us’), only insofar as we become merciful ourselves may we harvest the fruits of His mercy and taste, on a day to come, the last word of His mercy ‘that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard: neither hath it entered into the heart of man’ (1 Cor. 2:9).
‘Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.’”
~Dietrich von Hildebrand
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