On mercy
Mercy and truth are met together: righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth shall flourish out of the earth: and righteousness hath looked down from heaven. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Mercy is, perhaps, something that the church has begun to think about more clearly and with more focus in the past few years. That is in no small part, of course, due to the Year of Mercy proclaimed by Pope Francis a year or so ago, in which the Roman Catholic Church began to take more seriously the idea that God, in his infinite goodness, and indeed in his infinite wonder and glory, truly does offer total, merciful loving-kindness to His people here on earth. For through the eyes of mercy, we see the nature of God. What, then, is mercy? This must be one of the key questions facing those of us who call ourselves Christian, yet it does seem to be one we willingly ignore in order to focus on other things. Whether we are