Mercy is a sweet gracious working in love, mingled with plenteous pity: for mercy worketh in keeping us, and mercy worketh turning to us all things to good. Mercy, by love, suffereth us to fail in measure and in as much as we fail, in so much we fall; and in as much as we fall, in so much we die: for it needs must be that we die in so much as we fail of the sight and feeling of God that is our life. Our failing is dreadful, our falling is shameful, and our dying is sorrowful: but in all this the sweet eye of pity and love is lifted never off us, nor the working of mercy ceaseth. For I beheld the property of mercy, and I beheld the property of grace: which have two manners of working in one love. Mercy is a pitiful property which belongeth to the Motherhood in tender love; and grace is a worshipful property which belongeth to the royal Lordship in the same love. Mercy worketh: keeping, suffering, quickening, and healing; and all is tenderness of love. And grace worketh: raising, rewarding, endlessly overpassing that which our longing and our travail deserveth, spreading abroad and shewing the high plenteous largess of God's royal Lordship in His marvellous courtesy; and this is of the abundance of love. For grace worketh our dreadful failing into plenteous, endless solace; and grace worketh our shameful falling into high, worshipful rising; and grace worketh our sorrowful dying into holy, blissful life. For I saw full surely that ever as our contrariness worketh to us here in earth pain, shame, and sorrow, right so, on the contrary wise, grace worketh to us in heaven solace, worship, and bliss; and overpassing. And so far forth, that when we come up and receive the sweet reward which grace hath wrought for us, then we shall thank and bless our Lord, endlessly rejoicing that ever we suffered woe. And that shall be for a property of blessed love that we shall know in God which we could never have known without woe going before. And when I saw all this, it behoved me needs to grant that the mercy of God and the forgiveness is to slacken and waste our wrath.

Mercy is radical kindness. Mercy means offering or being offered aid in desperate straits. Mercy is not deserved. It involves absolving the unabsolvable, forgiving the unforgivable. Mercy brings us to the miracle of apology, given and accepted, to unashamed humility when we have erred or forgotten.

Mercy means that we no longer constantly judge everybody’s large and tiny failures, foolish hearts, dubious convictions, and inevitable bad behavior. We will never do this perfectly, but how do we do it better?

Mercy is like a mirror. I think mercy is what you give to others with the hope that it will come back to you. It’s what you give to people who don’t deserve it. It’s what you give to people who haven’t asked for it. It’s what you give and it will come back. — Bryan Stevenson

Mercy prolongs love and makes it even more beautiful. Mercy cannot be taken lightly. God is ever Father, and every, even every prodigal son, is to love Him, trust in Him, and keep returning to Him. This teaching comes to us without interruption from the pages of the Bible. And not only the teaching - it is God Himself who comes to the people. He sent His Son down to help people come up to Him.

We are all hurting and in need of God's mercy. Mercy isn't just for a certain category of people. We all stand in the need of God's mercy. And, at the same time, the Spirit is working in a lot of situations that, on the face of it, do not correspond to church teaching. That's what I mean when I say that God’s grace is greater than the channels we often imagine.

How mercy gets to exist, where it comes from, perhaps can be seen from the inner evidence and images of the poem — an act of self-realization, self acceptance and the consequent and inevitable relaxation of protective anxiety and self hood and the ability to see and love others in themselves as angels without stupid mental self deceiving moral categories selecting who it is safe to sympathize with and who is not safe.

Our good Lord the Holy Ghost, which is endless life dwelling in our soul, full securely keepeth us; and worketh therein a peace and bringeth it to ease by grace, and accordeth it to God and maketh it pliant. And this is the mercy and the way that our Lord continually leadeth us in as long as we be here in this life which is changeable. For I saw no wrath but on man's part; and that forgiveth He in us. For wrath is not else but a forwardness and a contrariness to peace and love; and either it cometh of failing of might, or of failing of wisdom, or of failing of goodness: which failing is not in God, but is on our part. For we by sin and wretchedness have in us a wretched and continuant contrariness to peace and to love. And that shewed He full often in His lovely Regard of Ruth and Pity. For the ground of mercy is love, and the working of mercy is our keeping in love. And this was shewed in such manner that I could not have perceived of the part of mercy but as it were alone in love; that is to say, as to my sight.

Two things belong to our soul as duty: the one is that we reverently marvel, the other that we meekly suffer, ever enjoying in God. For He would have us understand that we shall in short time see clearly in Himself all that we desire. And notwithstanding all this, I beheld and marvelled greatly: What is the mercy and forgiveness of God? For by the teaching that I had afore, I understood that the mercy of God should be the forgiveness of His wrath after the time that we have sinned. For methought that to a soul whose meaning and desire is to love, the wrath of God was harder than any other pain, and therefore I took that the forgiveness of His wrath should be one of the principal points of His mercy. But howsoever I might behold and desire, I could in no wise see this point in all the Shewing. But how I understood and saw of the work of mercy, I shall tell somewhat, as God will give me grace. I understood this: Man is changeable in this life, and by frailty and overcoming falleth into sin: he is weak and unwise of himself, and also his will is overlaid. And in this time he is in tempest and in sorrow and woe; and the cause is blindness: for he seeth not God. For if he saw God continually, he should have no mischievous feeling, nor any manner of motion or yearning that serveth to sin. Thus saw I, and felt in the same time; and methought that the sight and the feeling was high and plenteous and gracious in comparison with that which our common feeling is in this life; but yet I thought it was but small and low in comparison with the great desire that the soul hath to see God.

Against those who, trusting in the mercy of God, remain indifferent, without preforming good works. Since the twin sources of our sins are pride and sloth, God has revealed to us two of his attributes to cure them: his mercy and his justice. The proper function of justice is to bring pride low, however holy the works ('into not into judgement....'); the proper function of mercy is to combat sloth by encouraging good works according to this passage: 'The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance', and this other one about the Ninevites: 'Let us repent, for who can tell if God will turn away from his fierce anger?' Thus, his mercy, far from justifying slackness, is the very quality which formally combats it. Consequently, instead of saying: 'If God were not merciful, we should have to take every effort towards virtue,' we should on the contrary say that it is because God is merciful that we must make every effort.

There is mercy in every place, And mercy, encouraging thought! Gives even affliction a grace And reconciles man to his lot.

The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest. It becomes
The thronèd monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings,
But mercy is above this sceptered sway.
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings.
It is an attribute to God himself.
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.
Therefore, Jew, Though justice be thy plea, consider this-
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy,
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea,
Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there.

The action implied in merciful works is now quite clear. Whether it involves nourishing those who are hungry, clothing those who are naked, caring for sick, or another act, the manner of acting in these various actions has ceased to concern the ego that acts or to relate to it in any fashion; a common trait equally determines them all: forgetting oneself. […] Hence, what kind of action is acting in works of mercy, if it is not a power proper to the transcendental ego that says “I Can”? In this ego there is no power different from its own, different from all the powers it possesses, except for the hyper-power of absolute Life that gave it to itself in giving itself to itself. In works of mercy – and this is why they are “works” – a decisive transmutation takes place by which the ego’s power is extended to the hyper-power of absolute Life in which it is given to itself.

The mercy of the world is time. Time does not stop for love, but it does not stop for death and grief, either.