Mercy

“My Heart overflows with great mercy for souls, and especially for poor sinners. If only they could understand that I am the best of Fathers to them and that it is for them that the Blood and Water flowed from My Heart as from a fount overflowing with mercy.”

Diary 367

St. Faustina, in her Litany to Divine Mercy, declares that Mercy is the greatest attribute of God. It is by mercy and for mercy’s sake that Christ offered himself on the cross. It was for this that he came, to save us while still we were sinners. It is an unfathomable mystery, and it is the very spring that gives life to all things in the Garden of the Lord.

Mercy is the greatest hope of the bramble of the Lord. This is why the bramble remains always at the foot of so great a tree. For it is from here that flows always into the garden the stream of everlasting life. Mercy is at the heart of the bramble’s life, turning always toward the One, especially in times of darkness and despair.

Failure is not failure if the bramble turns again to God. For failure is merely an opportunity to trust in God again, to turn to Him, and to trust in His infinite mercy and goodness. This is not that one should seek to fall, but the fall itself becomes the opportunity to begin again, to advance in virtue, and to live in faithfulness to God’s call to holiness.

“Lord, let us turn always to the fount of mercy, trusting always that when we return to You and seek Your mercy that we are renewed in You and restored to Your friendship. Be ever near to us who call upon Your mercy. O blood and water which gushed forth from the heart of Jesus, we trust in You.”