Principles and Practices - December 12

MERCY AND JUSTICE

The mercy of which the Beatitude speaks, and upon which it utters a blessing, is the human counterpart of the mercy of God. It is a mercy penetrated with morality. A mercy aflame with the love of holiness, born of the love of the Holy One. However tender, pitiful, compas­sionate, toward the sinner, it is instinct with justice and the sense of the hatefulness of sin. It is strong on the side of God and right. It can stoop very low, to the most degraded, the most sin-bespattered, to those whom sin has trodden in the mire, but it stoops with pity to raise them. It sympathizes with the sinner, it never shows a particle of sym­pathy with sin. It keeps the lustre of its garments unstained while it walks through the haunts of vice and lives in an atmosphere hot and weighted with the fever of sin.

-Fiona McKay.
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From Principles and Practices
Compiled by Rev. J. Hogan of The Catholic Missionary Society
Published by Burns Oates & Washbourne Ltd., Publishers To The Holy See
Nihil Obstat; Eduardus J. Mahoney, S.T.D. Censor deputatus.
Imprimatur; Edm. Can. Surmont, Vicarius generalis.
First printed in 1930