This Week

Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him Zechariah after his father. But his mother said, "No; he is to be called John." They said to her, "None of your relatives has this name." Then they began motioning to his father to find out what name he wanted to give him. He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, "His name is John." And all of them were amazed. Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God.

Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke this prophecy:

"Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them. He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins. By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace."

----Luke 1:57-64, 67-79

When God's love touches us in our neediness, the sorrow and suffering inherent in the human condition, we name it mercy. Mercy is perhaps the loveliest of all God's qualities. This is the love that reaches into the dark space of our flailing and our failing, our losing and our dying. Mercy enters that space, picks us up and holds us tenderly until we are healed. Little by little, this love draws our groping hands and wasted energies to purposeful service; it looks directly into our uncomprehending eyes, hears our futile wail, and says, No matter. I love you anyway. Come on...And so mercy brings us to ever-new life.

----Elaine M. Prevallet, SL, "Living in the Mercy"

When I was studying spiritual direction at Shalem Institute, Tilden Edwards gave us a retreat exercise - to sing out the word for God that came most naturally to us. "Mercy," I sang. As we get older, perhaps, we shed ideas and concepts until only a few simple words remain. Mercy remains. The rehabilitation clinic - this abandoned corner of the universe, with its filth and cockroaches - has become my cloud of unknowing. "We save everything we can," I explain to a group of friends gathered for an afternoon music rehearsal who have asked about my life as a wild-animal rehabilitator. They are thinking, I soon realize, of prestigious wildlife...but in our underfunded world of wildlife rehabilitation, a "release" may mean packing up a crate of eastern cottontails, driving them into the country, and watching their panicky break for freedom.

---- Mary Rose O-Reilly, "Streams of Mercy"

Main Entry: mer·cy

• 1 a : compassion or forbearance shown especially to an offender or to one subject to one's power; also : lenient or compassionate treatment <begged for mercy> b : imprisonment rather than death imposed as penalty for first-degree murder
• 2 a : a blessing that is an act of divine favor or compassion; b : a fortunate circumstance <it was a mercy they found her before she froze>
• 3: compassionate treatment of those in distress <works of mercy among the poor>

----www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary

Questions:

• What does mercy mean to you? What is God's mercy?
• How did Zechariah experience the tender mercy of God? What quality did it have? Why did he pick that term?
• How have you seen or experienced the tender mercy of God?
• How do you receive mercy and how do you give it? What is it like to receive or give mercy?