Love is the perfection of the uncreated , in Himself. Mercy is the character of the Creator.
Mercy pities, spares, makes allowances, condescends; and yet if mercy is not the reason of God's love, where else shall we find it in His infinity?
[Colombiere, Claude de la.— This learned and saintly Jesuit was born in the year 1641, and yielded up his soul to God at the early age of forty-one, at Paray le Monial. After a two years' sojourn at the court of James II. God led him to Paray, to the school of the Sacred Heart, that he might discover its treasures and make known their value. " It was distinctly told me," writes the blessed Margaret Mary, " that this great servant of God had been partly designed for the execution of this grand design."]
God so pardons our sins, that He blots out even the remembrance of the greatest outrage. God does not act as men do. He does not grant half a pardon.
When any one has betrayed our trust, or has mortally offended us — howsoever we may wish to become reconciled to the offender, or may cherish an earnest desire to forgive, and strive in our heart to do so — nevertheless we find it difficult to place the same confidence in him, or to treat him with the same affection as before; for there remains in the corner of our heart a tinge of bitterness from time to time, or when we call to mind what he has done to us.
Our merciful Lord is not subject to this weakness.
Oh! would that all sinners who sincerely repent of their past offences could see in His heart the feelings He has for them; — no resentment, no bitterness there! and how thoroughly He forgives them.
God does not stop there. Not content with forgetting our trespasses, He gives us back the merit of those good
