From this distance of forgetting and reclaiming, I had moremercy on myself. I had poured my heart into serving. I could seenow what I had been blind to then, that the One treasured my service,regardless of human measures of success. (Linette)

Sharon Hinck

Will we let ourselves become a Church that calls and welcomes sinners with open arms, that gives courage and hope, or are we a Church closed in on herself? Are we a Church where the love of God dwells, where one cares for the other, where one prays for the other?A final question: what can I, a weak fragile sinner, do? God says to you, Do not be afraid of holiness; do not be afraid to aim high, to let yourself be loved and purified by God; do not be afraid to let yourself be guided by the Holy Spirit. Let us be infected by the holiness of God. Every Christian is called to sanctity...; and sanctity does not consist especially in doing extraordinary things, but in allowing God to act. It is the meeting of our weakness with the strength of his grace, it is saving faith in his action that allows us to live in charity, to do everything with joy and humility, for the glory of God and as a service to our neighbor.

Pope Francis

For the Church, the option for the poor is primarily a theological category rather than a cultural, sociological, political, or philosophical one. God shows the poor "his first mercy." This divine preference has consequences for the faith life of all Christians, because we are called to have "this mind...which was in Jesus Christ" (Phil. 2:5). Inspired by this, the Church has made an option for the poor, which is understood as a "special form of primacy in the exercise of Christian charity, to which the whole tradition of the Church bears witness." This option - as Benedict XVI has taught - "is implicit in our Christian faith in a God who became poor for us, so as to enrich us with his poverty." This is why I want a Church that is poor and for the poor. They have much to teach us. Not only do they share in the sensus fidei, but in their difficulties they know the suffering Christ. We need to let ourselves be evangelized by them. The new evangelization is an invitation to acknowledge the saving power at work in their lives and to put them at the center of the Church's pilgrim way. We are called to find Christ in them, to lend our voice to their causes, but also to be their friends, to listen to them, to speak for them, and to embrace the mysterious wisdom that God wishes to share with us through them.

Pope Francis

The light of love proper to faith can illumine the question of our own time-concerning truth. Truth, nowadays, is often reduced to the subjective authenticity of the individual, valid only to the life of the individual. A common truth intimidates us, for we identify it with the intransigent demands of totalitarian systems. But if truth is a truth of love, if it is a truth disclosed in personal encounter with the Other and with others, then it can be set free from its enclosure in individuals and become part of the common good. As a truth of love, it is not one that can be imposed by force; it is not a truth that stifles the individual. Since it is born of love, it can penetrate to the heart, to the personal core of each man and woman. Clearly, then, faith is not intransigent but grows in respectful coexistences with others. One who believes may not be presumptuous; on the contrary, truth leads to humility, because believers know that, rather than ourselves possessing truth, it is truth that embraces and possesses us. Far from making us inflexible, the security of faith sets us on a journey; it enables witness and dialogue with all.

Pope Francis

As religious leaders, we are called to be true "people of dialogue," to cooperate in building peace not as intermediaries but as authentic mediators. Intermediaries seek to give everyone a discount ultimately in order to gain something for themselves. However, the mediator is one who retains nothing for himself but rather spends himself generously until he is consumed, knowing that the only gain is peace. Each one of us is called to be an artisan of peace, by uniting and not dividing, by extinguishing hatred and not holding on to it, by opening paths to dialogue and not by constructing new walls! Let us dialogue and meet one another in order to establish a culture of dialogue in the world, a culture of encounter.

Pope Francis

We cannot become starched Christians, those overeducated Christians who speak of theological matters as they calmly sip their tea. No! We must become courageous Christians and go in search of the people who are the very flesh of Christ! ... This is the [issue]: the flesh of Christ, touching the flesh of Christ, taking upon ourselves this suffering for the poor.

Pope Francis

Mary was able to turn a stable into a home for Jesus, with poor swaddling clothes and an abundance of love. She is the handmaid of the Father who sings his praises. She is the friend who is ever concerned that wine not be lacking in our lives. She is the woman whose heart was pierced by a sword and who understands all our pain.

Pope Francis

There is a Marian "style" to the Church's work of evangelization. Whenever we look to Mary, we come to believe once again in the revolutionary nature of love and tenderness. in her we see that humility and tenderness ar enot virtues of the weak but of the strong, who need not treat others poorly in order to feel important themselves. Contemplating Mary, we realize that she who praised God for "bringing down the mighty from their thrones" and "sending the rich away empty" (Luke 1:52-53) is also the one who brings a homely warmth to our pursuit of justice. She is also the one who carefully keeps "all these things, pondering them in heart" (Luke 2:19).Mary is able to recognize the traces of God's Spirit in events great and small. She constantly contemplates the mystery of God in our world, in human history, and in our daily lives. She is the woman of prayer and work in Nazareth, and she is also Our Lady of Help, who sets out from her town "with haste" (Luke 1:39) to be of service to others. This interplay of justice and tenderness, of contemplation and concern for others, is what makes the ecclesial community look to Mary as a model of evangelization.

Pope Francis

Isn't unconditional love supposed to work both ways? How can we expect unconditional love for ourselves if we are not willing to grant others the same mercy?

Christina Engela

So, verily, with every difficulty, there is relief;Verily, with every difficulty there is relief.Therefore, when thou art free (from thine immediate task), still labour hard,And to thy Lord turn [all] thy attention.

Anonymous

A'isha asked him: 'Does one come to Paradise only by the mercy of Allah?' He repeated three times over: 'No one comes to Paradise except by the mercy of Allah!' 'Not even you. Messenger of Allah?' she asked. 'Not even I, unless Allah enfolds me in His mercy.

Anonymous

We angels are misconceived in the human world. People perceive us as kindly and bountiful; when, in truth, we are about as fluffy, as gentle, as yielding, as rattlesnakes.

Rebecca Lim

For happy are the merciful for they shall, too, know mercy.

David Paul Kirkpatrick

I am so grateful for the many times God has shown me the mercy of not giving me what I want.

Steve Maraboli

Only those who are aware of God's wrath are amazed by God's grace.

C.J. Mahaney

When we go through life believing that we need mercy, we’re more likely to extend it. As humans our tendency is to want justice for others, but mercy for ourselves. tIt doesn’t work that way. We reap what we sow. (Galatians 6:7) And the timing isn’t ours—it’s God’s. He often extends us mercy, not when we are well behaved, but when we are miserable, helpless, wicked, ungodly, and powerless. Even when we bring on our problems by our own choices, His mercy comes when we cry for it. To refuse to cry for it because we feel unworthy, is a win for Satan.

Toni Sorenson

Humility is recognizing the fullness of our sin, so we can embrace the fullness of God's mercy.

Alisa Hope Wagner

He may have confused honor with with with ruthlessness.

T.J. Stiles

We need to let ourselves be evangelized by the poor. They have much to teach us.

Pope Francis

I deserted the world and sought solitude because I became tired of rendering courtesy to those multitudes who believe that humility is a sort of weakness, and mercy a kind of cowardice, and snobbery a form of strength.

Kahlil Gibran

Buck Barrow, brother of Clyde Barrow (Bonnie & Clyde) was once asked "Where are you wanted by the law?" Barrow replied, "Wherever I've been." What a picture of our own guilt. We cannot escape our sinfulness because it follows us everywhere. Neither can we escape the mercy of God that is always there.

William Branks

People who excuse their faults and claim they didn't deserved to be punished - there are lots of them. But those who don't excuse their faults and admit they didn't deserve to be spared - they are few.

Zhuangzi

May we be enabled to say "No" to sin and "Yes" to the sinner.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

For in that perfect garden when one day entered sin,An animal was murdered for garments made of skin.When figs of human effort produced religious strife,The Father tailored clothing for Adam and his wife.

Joyce Rachelle

I shouldn’t complain about God’s mercy to others while thanking Him for His mercy to me. I shouldn’t commit the sin of pride by justifying my rebellion or my running from God compared to other people’s sin. Who am I to be angry at what the angels in Heaven rejoice in?

Teresa Schultz

Too much mercy... often resulted in further crimes which were fatal to innocent victims who need not have been victims if justice had been put first and mercy second.

Agatha Christie

High justice would in no way be debased if ardent love should cancel instantly the debts these penitents must satisfy.

Dante Alighieri

One must always be prepared to switch sides with justice, that fugitive of the winning camp.

Simone Weil

Thankfully, God has shown us that hope, in its million different forms, always springs from three primary colors: justice, mercy, and love.

Richard Dahlstrom

A king who is renowned for mercy," said the Arobern, with heavy irony, "must also be renowned in equal measure for injustice.

Rachel Neumeier

The oligarchs do not care what justice is, only what seems just. They do not care what mercy is, only what appears merciful. Thus justice and mercy will always escape them.

Catherynne M. Valente

I have a secret passion for mercy. But justice is what keeps happening to people.

Ross Macdonald

Mercy is a contingency plan, devised by the guilty in the eventuality that they are caught. Justice is the domain of the just. - Richard Rahl

Terry Goodkind

Sorrow and profound fatigue are at the heart of Dewey's silence. It had been his ambition to learn "exactly what happened in that house that night." Twice now he'd been told, and the two versions were very much alike, the only serious discrepancy being that Hickock attributed all four deaths to Smith, while Smith contended that Hickock had killed the two women. But the confessions, though they answered questions of how and why, failed to satisfy his sense of meaningful design. The crime was a psychological accident, virtually an impersonal act; the victims might as well have been killed by lightning. Except for one thing: they had experienced prolonged terror, they had suffered. And Dewey could not forget their sufferings. Nonetheless, he found it possible to look at the man beside him without anger - with, rather, a measure of sympathy - for Perry Smith's life had been no bed of roses but pitiful, an ugly and lonely progress toward one mirage and then another. Dewey's sympathy, however, was not deep enough to accommodate either forgiveness or mercy. He hoped to see Perry and his partner hanged - hanged back to back.

Truman Capote

We can not begin to administer justice without understanding the concept of truth and mercy.

Paul Bamikole

The Underworld had no mercy. It only had justice

Rick Riordan

He tells people that they can no more expect justice in the afterlife than in the mortal plane, but he doesn't do this to dissuade them from worshipping God; on the contrary, he encourages them to do so. What he insists on is that they not love God under a misapprehension, that if they wish to love God, they be prepared to do so no matter His intentions. God is not just, God is not kind, God is not merciful, and understanding that is essential to true devotion.

Ted Chiang

A sentence which might bear in mind that our great struggle is that of fear, and that if a man has killed compulsively, it is because he was extremely frightened. Above all, a justice which might examine itself, & recognize that all of us, a living quagmire, founded in darkness, & for this reason not a man's evil should be cosigned to another man's evil: so that the latter may not shoot to kill without restraint or censure. A justice which will not forget that we are all dangerous, & that at the hour when the executant of justice kills, he is no longer protecting us or seeking to eliminate a criminal; he is committing his own crime, which he has been harboring for a considerable time. At the hour of killing a criminal- at that very moment, an innocent man is being put to death. No, no, I am not asking for the sublime, nor for the things which gradually become the words which help me to sleep peacefully. Those of us who take refuge in the abstract are a mixture of forgiveness & vague charity. What I want is something much harsher & much more difficult: I want the terrestrial.

Clarice Lispector

The main message of Jesus, I believed, is that mercy trumps justice every time. Not only that, but maybe the basic message of original sin isn't "feel guilty all the time." Maybe it is more along these lines: "We all have a notion of what it means to be good, and we can't live up to it all the time.

Paul Kalanithi

Embracing our brokenness creates a need and a desire for mercy and perhaps a corresponding need to show mercy.

Bryan Stevenson

The ugliness that man can do to man might cast a shadow between you and the certainty of the justice and mercy God can do to him hereafter. It takes half a lifetime to reach the spot where eternity is always visible, and the crude injustice of the hour shrivels out of sight.

Ellis Peters

[The] self overcoming of justice: one knows the beautiful name it has given itself--mercy...

Friedrich Nietzsche

Justice shall be mixed with mercy. You shall not always be an Ass.

C.S. Lewis

Walter's case taught me that fear and anger are a threat to justice; they can infect a community, a state, or a nation and make us blind, irrational, and dangerous.

Bryan Stevenson

The robot said, “I have been trying, friend Julius, to understand some remarks Elijah made to me earlier. Perhaps I am beginning to, for it suddenly seems to me that the destruction of what should not be, that is, the destruction of what you people call evil, is less just and desirable than the conversion of this evil into what you call good.” He hesitated, then, almost as though he were surprised at his own words, he said, “Go, and sin no more!

R. Daneel Olivaw

The time's gone by for sentiment and all that foolery. Mercy's all very well but after all it's justice that clinches the bargain.

Walter de la Mare

I was thinking, that when my time comes, I should be sorry if the only plea I had to offer was that of justice. Because it might mean that only justice would be meted out to me.

Agatha Christie

For children are innocent and love justice, while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy.

G.K. Chesterton

It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.

Voltaire

I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.

Oscar Wilde

Choosing life is always messy. But it is there in the messiness, in the conflicted and often confused ways we live our lives, that we can learn how much mercy matters to us all.

Mathew N. Schmalz

YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES."So we can believe the big ones?"YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

Terry Pratchett

Suppose after all that death does end all. Next to eternal joy, next to being forever with those we love and those who have loved us, next to that, is to be wrapt in the dreamless drapery of eternal peace. Next to eternal life is eternal sleep.Upon the shadowy shore of death the sea of trouble casts no wave. Eyes that have been curtained by the everlasting dark, will never know again the burning touch of tears. Lips touched by eternal silence will never speak again the broken words of grief. Hearts of dust do not break. The dead do not weep. Within the tomb no veiled and weeping sorrow sits, and in the rayless gloom is crouched no shuddering fear.I had rather think of those I have loved, and lost, as having returned to earth, as having become a part of the elemental wealth of the world – I would rather think of them as unconscious dust, I would rather dream of them as gurgling in the streams, floating in the clouds, bursting in the foam of light upon the shores of worlds, I would rather think of them as the lost visions of a forgotten night, than to have even the faintest fear that their naked souls have been clutched by an orthodox god.I will leave my dead where nature leaves them. Whatever flower of hope springs up in my heart I will cherish, I will give it breath of sighs and rain of tears. But I cannot believe that there is any being in this universe who has created a human soul for eternal pain. I would rather that every god would destroy himself; I would rather that we all should go to eternal chaos, to black and starless night, than that just one soul should suffer eternal agony.I have made up my mind that if there is a God, he will be merciful to the merciful.Upon that rock I stand. –That he will not torture the forgiving. –Upon that rock I stand. –That every man should be true to himself, and that there is no world, no star, in which honesty is a crime.Upon that rock I stand.The honest man, the good woman, the happy child, have nothing to fear, either in this world or the world to come.Upon that rock I stand.

Robert G. Ingersoll

I swear that while I live I will do what little I can to preserve and to augment the liberties of man, woman, and

Robert G. Ingersoll

Don't thank me for telling the truth when it would have been mercy to lie to you.

Marissa Meyer

God doesn't always bring you the entire truth. He sometimes gives it to you in pieces, in order to learn. Regardless, it is the piece that you got today that will renew your faith for tomorrow.

Shannon L. Alder

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Mercy Quotes - Page 4

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