Lent II - Saved by love and mercy

Saved by love and mercy...

   As I see it, God's mercy is a sweet, gracious operation in love, mingled with plentiful pity, for mercy works, protecting us, and mercy works, turning everything to good for us. Mercy for love allows us to fail to a certain extent; and inasmuch as we fail, in so much we fall, and inasmuch as we fall, in so much we die... But yet in all this the sweet eye of pity is never turned away from us, and the operation of mercy does not cease. 

Dame Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, Ch.48

Lent I - On temptation

February 17, 2013

On Temptation...

 

   The tests which modern society subjects Christians to, in fact, are many, and affect the personal and social life. It is not easy to be faithful to Christian marriage, practice mercy in everyday life, leave space for prayer and inner silence, it is not easy to publicly oppose choices that many take for granted... The temptation to set aside one’s faith is always present and conversion becomes a response to God which must be confirmed several times throughout one’s life.

Benedict XVI - Ash Wednesday Sermon, 2013

(h/t to Whispers in the Loggia )