St. Robert Bellarmine - Divine Mercy

St. Robert Bellarmine On Divine Mercy

"Return Mercy With Mercy"




BRIEFLY stated, dear Brethren, that is the subject
of today's Gospel. It teaches that divine
clemency and human gratitude should join in indissoluble
wedlock, and bring into this world the lovely
virtues of mercy and charity. Shakespeare compares
mercy to the "gentle rain from heaven," that
gentle downpour that renews the face of the
earth that steals through all earth's devious
windings back to the ocean, and thence back to
the skies whence it came. So, too, divine mercy if
it beget not in us love and mercy one for another
that mercy "that reacheth from end to end mightily,
and ordereth all things sweetly," if it be not exhaled
and returned whence it came, by grateful hearts, the
heavens become as unyielding as polished metal
and God's earthly kingdom an arid waste. For,
blessed are the merciful, and only the merciful, for
they alone shall obtain mercy.

-St. Robert Bellarmine

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