Pliability is not mercy

Another kind of weakness, nobler than that which is colored by cowardice or inertia, should still be carefully distinguished from genuine mercy. What we have in mind is the behavior of those softhearted people who will never refuse any request nor inflict any displeasure on others.

Unlike the truly merciful, they by no means view the situation from a higher plane. They do not take their departure from that ultimate love which considers the objective good of the fellow person over and above any immediate advantage or amenity. They are slaves to their instinct of compassion.

In other words, they fall short of an adequate response to the situation, in that they do not extend their compassion beyond the range of the present moment, nor care about their fellow’s well-being in an integral and permanent sense of the term. Theirs is an inordinate compassion, which does not arise, as does mercy, from a confrontation of the problem on hand with God and His holy will. Such compassion delivers them over entirely to the dynamism of the momentary situation, which determines their conduct without any counterweight. Such is the compassion of an unconscientious nurse who secretly tenders the coveted syringe to a morphine addict writhing in the torments of a curative treatment.

Indiscriminate generosity is not mercy

Lastly, there are people who, owing to a certain generous disposition, are ashamed to make their rights valid even when this would be the objectively right course. They shy at the idea of taking any advantage of their stronger position as a hierarchic superior, a creditor, a victim of outrage. Thus, they fail in their duty to reproach a person, or to seize him with a peremptory demand, even though this were in conformity with his objective good. Such a type of behavior, again, is not inspired by mercy.

Mercy is rooted in concern for the good of another

For if I am truly merciful I shall derive the principle of my conduct towards others from that ultimate love which is above all concerned precisely with the good of the person in question—regardless of whether it is easy or hard for my own nature to insist upon my right. This—and not pliancy or tractability as such—is the essential mark of mercy, that, by virtue of my participation in the love of God, I relinquish my nature as a central frame of reference and shatter the narrow perspective in which I would see things and situations merely with my own eyes.

And this transformation implies that the instinctive tendencies of my nature, whether in themselves more possessive or more yielding, will no longer play any decisive part in the shaping of my conduct.

He who is guided by true mercy, then, will yield his right on the supposition only that he does not, by so doing, bring moral harm to his debtor. Consider the parable of the Prodigal Son more closely, and you will immediately discover that the doctrine underlying it is by no means that of indiscriminate forgiveness. To be sure, the father hastens to welcome his spendthrift son, but he does so in response to the youngster’s repentant homecoming. The presupposition, in other words, is that the disaster his son has brought upon himself has evoked in him a sense of his guilt and a resolution to change his ways.