Let us be renewed by God’s mercy, let us be loved by Jesus, let us enable the power of his love to transform our lives too; and let us become agents of this mercy, channels through which God can water the earth, protect all creation and make justice and peace flourish (Pope Francis, Easter Urbi et Orbi message on March 31, 2013).
Made for Mercy Series
- Made for Mercy
- Mercy Is a Must
- The Mission Is Ministry
- Making it Matter
- Managing the Moment
- Mother of Mercy
- Merit in Motion
Made for Mercy
What’s a Jubilee of Mercy? radio show.
God’s Presence is Mercy
Exodus 25, God’s presence rested, enthroned on the mercy seat, on the top of the ark of the covenant. It was on the mercy seat that the High Priest would sprinkle the sacrificial blood of atonement once a year on the Great Day of Atonement for his own sins and those of the whole people of God.
Hebrews 9:5, above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat (or propitiation). Of these things we cannot now speak in detail.
1 John 4:10, In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
propitiation = satisfaction of wrath
The seat of propitiation was the seat of mercy, where God’s presence rested.
Hebrews 2:17, Therefore he had to be made like his brethren in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make expiation for the sins of the people (RSV-CE). Wherefore, it behoved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren, that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest before God, that he might be a propitiation for the sins of the people (DRB).
Romans 3:24-26, Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, Whom God hath proposed to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood, to the shewing of his justice, for the remission of former sins, Through the forbearance of God, for the shewing of his justice in this time: that he himself may be just and the justifier of him who is of the faith of Jesus Christ.
God’s Name is Mercy
Exodus 33:19, And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you my name ‘The LORD’; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.
Exodus 34:5-7, And the LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. The LORD passed before him, and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
James 2:13, Mercy triumphs over judgment
Romans 8:1, There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Mercy – not compassion or “feelings” of sympathy, but action.
John Hardon’s Modern Catholic Dictionary