Throughout Sacred Scripture, there is an urgency on the part of God for man to also have feelings of mercy, that "compassion for the misery of others, which moves us to remedy it, if possible". The Lord promises us that we will be happy if we have a merciful heart for others, and that we will obtain mercy from God.
The field of mercy is as large as the field of human misery that we are trying to remedy. And man can suffer misery and calamities in the physical, intellectual and moral order.... For this reason, the works of mercy are innumerable - as many as man has needs - although traditionally, by way of example, fourteen works of mercy have been singled out, in which this virtue is manifested in a special way.
Our compassionate and merciful attitude should be, in the first place, with those with whom we usually have the closest contact - our family, our friends - with those whom God has placed at our side and with those who are most in need.
Often mercy will consist in taking care of the health, rest and nourishment of those whom God entrusts to us. The sick deserve special attention: companionship, true concern for their illness, teaching them and helping them to offer their pain to God.... In a society dehumanized by frequent attacks on the family, the number of the sick and elderly abandoned, without comfort and affection, is increasing. Visiting these people in their loneliness is an ever more necessary work of mercy. God rewards in a special way these moments of companionship: what you have done for one of these, you have done for me, says the Lord.
We must also practice, along with the so-called material works of mercy, the spiritual ones. First of all, to correct those who err, with appropriate warning, with charity, without offending them; to teach those who do not know, especially with regard to religious ignorance, the great enemy of God, which is increasing day by day in alarming proportions: Catechesis has now become a work of mercy of the utmost importance and urgency; to counsel those who doubt, with honesty and uprightness of intention, helping them on their way to God; to console the afflicted, sharing their pain, encouraging them to recover their joy and understand the supernatural meaning of the sorrow they suffer; to forgive those who offend us, promptly, without giving too much importance to the offense, and as often as necessary; to help those who need help, rendering this service with generosity and joy; finally, to pray to God for the living and for the dead, feeling ourselves especially bound by the Communion of Saints to those persons to whom we are more obliged for reasons of kinship, friendship, and so on.
Our attitude of mercy towards others should be extended to many other manifestations of life, for "nothing can make you such an imitator of Christ," says St. John Chrysostom, "as concern for others. Even if you fast, even if you sleep on the ground, even if, so to speak, you kill yourself, if you do not care for your neighbor, you have done little, you are still far from His image".
In this way we will obtain mercy from God for our life, and perhaps we will also merit it for others, that abyss of mercy that extends from generation to generation, as our Lady prophesied to her cousin St. Elizabeth.
Let us ask for divine mercy for ourselves, for we need it so much, and for our generation, through St. Mary, Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope. Before the coming feast of the Immaculate Conception, our trusting recourse to Our Lady becomes, if possible, more continuous and in love.