Was what Judas did really that much worse than what Peter did? Or the rest of the disciples? Peter denied even knowing Jesus. All the rest of them ran away.

A donkey says power isn’t what you think it is. Mercy is power. Virtue is power. Healing is power. Power isn’t the ability to make someone submit, but to make someone whole.

God knows all the opportunities we missed, for sure, but he also knows all the ones we didn’t, the ones that opened our eyes and changed our minds, the ones that we go to Church and say Thank You for, Sabbath after Sabbath, year after year. Those are the ones we talk about in the hope that our experience may help a partner, sibling, neighbor, friend, or boss.

We can only recognize a God of Mercy, however, if we recognize ourselves as people twisted and distorted by sin. Who pays attention to mercy but sinners?

The arc of the Bible is always toward the radical, unlimited love and mercy of God. To conclude, after reading just 1 Samuel 15, that God is a hateful ethnic cleanser, is a stupid way to read the Bible. There is a difference between what is in the Bible, and what the Bible teaches. You have to read the whole thing.

Mercy. It’s not just for nice people. It’s for people like us. People like you.

We walk by a lot of small opportunities to bear witness to Jesus. Perhaps we could resolve each day to walk by one fewer. Perhaps we could decide each day that before 10 a.m. we will do one thing to love, honor, and celebrate Jesus that we didn’t do the day before, and then pray that that one thing will bear much fruit.

“It is not the will of My Father, who is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.” Our children are vulnerable and dangerously weak. They need to hear more loudly and clearly from us the Good News that God wants to save them, save us all.

Jesus had no patience with rules that interfered with divine mercy, nor with preferring the maintenance of feuds to reconciliation. The nature of divine mercy is so radical, however, that your neighbor is precisely the person who is in need of mercy, even if that person is your sworn enemy.

Every injury takes something irreplaceable. Vengeance keeps the wound from healing, makes sure it bleeds. Mercy turns wounds into scars.

This radical mercy means that Jesus already loves the people who hurt us, and He wants them as much as He wants us.

The only requirement for divine mercy is to want mercy, and believe that Jesus has it to give. Period.

Mercy and forgiveness have always been available. All we need to do is claim them. Repentance is how we say "yes".

Is someone who says he has an alternative to a time-tested moral truth, something that is easy & will yield better results than the old way.

Start where God starts. Start with mercy.

When we pray we are turning as much of ourselves as we have toward as much of God as we understand.