Blessed Are the Merciful…

This reminder comes from the Master of mankind: “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.”

Vengeance and revenge, cruelty, and unkindness; a contemptuous attitude, harshly putting another person in his place⎯these could come under the unmerciful category. And we can rightly ask ourselves these questions: Where would we be if it were not for the mercy of God? Who of us know how urgently and at what moment any one of us may need the mercy of any others? No man can be assured that he will always have the upper hand. No man can be assured that his circumstances may not suddenly be reversed, or altered altogether.

Sometimes we see unmerciful attitudes and actions, not only among enemies, but even in the closest relationships of life. Discipline, constructive discipline, is often essential. But striking a child⎯or anyone⎯is unreasoning anger, cruelty to those physically defenseless, is something for which we would surely be accountable⎯to God, to conscience, and even to the law of the land. And even where no legal penalties are imposed, those who are unmerciful, cruel, those who are insensitive to the suffering of others, will surely experience a coarsening within themselves.

Sometimes one person may have another person in a position where he must sell something, or concede something, with undue duress⎯where he must give up something for less than it is worth, or be forced to yield in unfair circumstances. Sometimes unfairness is not physical or material, but is unfairness of attitude: shutting out, cutting down, the cruel belittling of others. As wrote the writer of Tristram Shandy: “Trust that man in nothing who has not a conscience in everything.”

No one, no man, no woman, however much in authority, however much in command, having however much advantage over another, knows at any moment when he may need mercy, from a child to whom he does injustice, or when he may need mercy from any man.

We cite again from the highest Source: “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.”