QUOTATION: Justice and Mercy

Justice without mercy is cruelty. Mercy without justice is the mother of all dissolution.

--St. Thomas Aquinas

QUOTATION: Priests Must Be Ministers of Mercy

The Church has sometimes locked itself up in excessive attention to detail, in small-minded rules. The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you. And the ministers of the Church must be ministers of mercy above all. The confessor, for example, is always in danger of being either too much a rigorist or too lax. Neither are merciful, because neither of these roles really takes responsibility for the person. The rigorist washes his hands and leaves it to the commandment. The lenient minister washes his hands by simply saying ‘This is not a sin’, or something similar. In pastoral ministry we must accompany people, and we must heal their wounds.

--Pope Francis, My Door is Always Open: a Conversation on Faith, Hope and the Church in a Time of Change 

QUOTATION: Mercy

It is mercy, not justice or courage or even heroism, that alone can defeat evil.

--Peter Kreeft, The Philosophy of Tolkien: The Worldview Behind the Lord of the Rings

QUOTATION: Clergy Must Be Ministers of Mercy

The Church has sometimes locked itself up in excessive attention to detail, in small-minded rules. The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you. And the ministers of the Church must be ministers of mercy above all. The confessor, for example, is always in danger of being either too much a rigorist or too lax. Neither are merciful, because neither of these roles really takes responsibility for the person. The rigorist washes his hands and leaves it to the commandment. The lenient minister washes his hands by simply saying ‘This is not a sin’, or something similar. In pastoral ministry we must accompany people, and we must heal their wounds.

--Pope Francis, My Door is Always Open: a Conversation on Faith, Hope and the Church in a Time of Change

QUOTATION: Mercy

Just as a thought is made manifest through actions and words, so is our future reward through the impulses of the heart. Thus a merciful heart will receive mercy, while a merciless heart will receive the opposite.

--St Mark the Ascetic

QUOTATION: Defeating Evil

It is mercy, not justice or courage or even heroism, that alone can defeat evil.

--Peter Kreeft, The Philosophy of Tolkien: The Worldview Behind the Lord of the Rings

QUOTATION: Love Saves

If there is no mercy in our hearts, if we do not experience the joy of forgiveness, we are not in communion with God, even if we observe all the commandments, because it is love that saves, not the simple observance of rules. It is in love for God and for our neighbour that the commandments are fulfilled.

--Pope Francis

QUOTATION: Prayer, Fasting, Mercy

There are three things, my brethren, by which faith stands firm, devotion remains constant, and virtue endures. They are prayer, fasting and mercy. Prayer knocks at the door, fasting obtains, mercy receives. Prayer, mercy and fasting: these three are one, and they give life to each other. Fasting is the soul of prayer, mercy is the lifeblood of fasting. Let no one try to separate them; they cannot be separated. If you have only one of them or not all together, you have nothing. So if you pray, fast; if you fast, show mercy; if you want your petition to be heard, hear the petition of others. If you do not close your ear to others you open God's ear to yourself.

-- Saint Peter Chrysologus

QUOTATION: Penance

I must say that we Christians, even in recent times, have often avoided the word ‘penance,’ which seemed too harsh to us. Now, under the attacks of the world that speaks to us of our sins, we see that being able to do penance is a grace and we see how it is necessary to do penance, that is, to recognize what is mistaken in our life, to open oneself to forgiveness, to prepare oneself for forgiveness, to allow oneself to be transformed. The pain of penance, that is to say of purification and of transformation, this pain is grace, because it is renewal, and it is the work of Divine Mercy.


-- Pope Benedict XVI

QUOTATION: Sin, Mercy, Judgement

Before sinning, let man fear God's justice, but after sinning, let him presume on his mercy. And let him not so fear His justice as not to be strengthened by the consolation of hope; nor so confident of His mercy as to neglect to apply to his wounds the medicine of adequate penance.

-- Pope St. Gregory I, Morals 33:23.