“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.” —Matthew 5:7
In this Beatitude Jesus again returns to the idea of flow. Notice that there’s an exchange going on here: we give mercy and we receive mercy. And this is not coincidental, for the root of the word “mercy” comes from the old Etruscan merc, which also gives us “commerce” and “merchant.” It’s all about exchange.
Usually we think of the mercy of God as a kind of divine clemency, and we pray, “Lord have mercy upon us” as a confession of our weakness and dependency.
.. mercy is not something God has so much as it’s something that God is.