Mercy presupposes true inner freedom

It also presupposes an inward suppleness and fluidity; a thoroughly melted, quickened, liberated heart. Every inward scar, as it were—every hardening, every incrustation brought about by an experience we have failed to rectify before God—dams up the flux of mercy. Nay, the path of mercy is thwarted by every kind of inner unfreedom: by our bondage, for example, to anxiety or to disgust; to the rancor evoked in us by an insult; and in general to every overemphatic preoccupation. For everything that stunts our freedom tends to make us self-conscious and to deprive us of the capacity, implied in mercy, of taking our stand above the situation.

He alone who has attained the supernatural sovereignty that results from true freedom and is reserved for those who seek only the kingdom of God and His justice, who expects nothing of his own forces but everything of God—he alone can participate in the specifically divine virtue of mercy.

None but those who have burst through the narrow limits of ego-life, and in full openness and awakeness centered their lives in Christ, can truly respond to the miseria of others and—beyond all mere compassion—perform the act of that redeeming loving kindness which conveys to the wretched a breath of the love of God and lifts them from their misery, “Lifting up the poor out of the dunghill, that he may place him with princes, with the princes of his people” (Ps. 112:7-8).

Mercy presupposes humility

Nor is this holy sovereignty possible without humility. He alone who is deeply humble is blessed with true inward freedom and fluidity; he alone is free from all impeding hardness. The general significance of humility as a condition of all participation in the divine life stands out in particular brightness when it is a question of mercy. Our possession of the highest human virtue (which is humility) constitutes the necessary foundation for our progress towards sharing the specifically divine virtue of mercy. We must die to ourselves so that the mercy of Christ may fill us. With St. John the Baptist we must say: “He must increase; but I must decrease” (John 3:30).

Our mercy toward others is the measure of our life in Christ

Mercy, the specifically supernatural virtue, thus provides a touchstone more infallible perhaps than the test of any other virtue for a life conceived and molded in Christ. Hence, the question whether we have been merciful must play a decisive part in our examination of conscience. Many are the occasions for mercy which we miss. Only too often do we, as did the Pharisee, pass by a wounded one—clinging to our personal concerns, circumscribed by our lack of freedom.

Yet, the virtue by which we live hourly is precisely the one of which we ought to be most mindful. And the mercy of God is what we live by. It pervades our lives integrally; it is the primal truth on which the whole being of a Christian rests. “For his mercy endureth forever” (Ps. 135:1). Indeed, the light of which the Psalmist says, “The light of Thy countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us” (Ps. 4:7), is His mercy who “maketh His sun to rise upon the good and bad” (Matt. 5:45) and who “spared not even His own Son” (Rom. 8:32) in order to redeem us.