"Let us pray to the Lord to help us be 'infected' by His mercy" - 12 Quotes from the Holy Father on Mercy and Forgiveness

1."Jesus Christ is divine mercy in person: Encountering Christ means encountering the mercy of God. The mercy of Christ is not a cheap grace; it does not presume a trivialization of evil. Christ carries in His body and on His soul all the weight of evil, and all its destructive force. He burns and transforms evil through suffering, in the fire of His suffering love."

2. "The secret of the true happiness of individuals and peoples: to believe and proclaim that the Lord has done marvellous things for us and that His mercy is from generation to generation on those who are faithful to him."

3. "God loves us in a way that we might call 'obstinate' and enfolds us in His inexhaustible tenderness."

4. "We are all sinners but God heals us with an abundance of grace, mercy and tenderness."

5. "How many people also in our time are in search of God, in search of Jesus and of His church, in search of divine mercy, and are waiting for a 'sign' that will touch their minds and their hearts! Today, as then, the evangelist reminds us that the only 'sign' is Jesus raised on the cross: Jesus who died and rose is the absolutely sufficient sign."

6. "Wherever people are suffering, make it your task to serve them."

7. "To understand and accept God's merciful love: May this be your commitment, first of all in your families and then in every neighborhood"

8.  "Forgiveness is above all a personal choice, a decision of the heart to go against the natural instinct to pay back evil with evil."

9. "'Thus says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning'. But is this return to God possible? Yes, because there is a force that does not reside in our hearts, but that emanates from the heart of God and the power of His mercy. ... It is possible to return to the Lord, it is a 'grace', because it is the work of God and the fruit of faith that we entrust to His mercy. But this return to God becomes a reality in our lives only when the grace of God penetrates and moves our innermost core."

10. "Love never ends or fails. Love never ends. Everything must be based on love - the relation between two friends, my ministry, my service; the church services in every field must be based on love. Why? Because God is Love."

11. "We must note that Christ, in revealing the love-mercy of God, at the same time demanded from people that they also should be guided in their lives by love and mercy. This requirement forms part of the very essence of the messianic message, and constitutes the heart of the Gospel ethos."

12. [Our Lenten fast is not accomplished with mere abstinence from food, but with good deed; moreover]  "it should lead to personal amendment and domestic harmony... Let faults be forgiven, let bonds be loosed, offences wiped out, designs of vengeance fall through, that the holy festival through both Divine and human grace may find all happy, all innocent.
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Ah, but which Pope, you ask?  Well, 2, 6, 8,  and 11 are from Pope Saint John Paul II; 4 from Pope Francis; 10, Pope Theodore II; and 12, Pope St Leo the Great. The others and the title are Pope Benedict XVI.

"Your Majesty, the people have no bread!"

I never met her, of course, but I've always wondered if Marie Antoinette's most famous advice, (apocryphal or not,) that her subjects should make do with brioche was not sarcastic, but clueless.

People just are, sometimes, you know?

I had a roommate in actor housing once, and one night after the show while a bunch of us were watching Ironweed, Missy pipes up and says, with a thoughtful frown, You know, if I were gonna be a bum, I think I would do it somewhere warm.

Yes, Missy, me too, if I were an unemployed alcoholic, homeless by self-imposed exile after accidentally killing my own child, living in Albany at the height, or I guess, depth of the depression, I too would head for Hawaii on my jet, or perhaps ask Mater and Pater to book me a sleeper car to the Gold Coast every winter.

She was, indeed kind of spoiled rich, but she wasn't mean.

We may judge actions, but we shouldn't, we can't judge intentions.

But I do all the time.

Most recently, in my head, I mocked a site, (and whoever put it together,) six ways to Sunday, after being tempted with promise of ways to organize ones closet, (I am the sort of slob who loves to read about non-slob environments, I just don't live in one, or put any effort into creating one.)
Among the "hints"?

Make room for a vanity!
       Why don't you put a comfy plush chair in your closet?
                     Wouldn’t pondering your outfit be more enjoyable on a sheepskin rug?

It occurs to me that these people have no idea what a closet is.
It occurs to me that these people are ninnies.

 It occurs to me that I have much work to do in the marginalize not lest ye yourself be marginalized department.

I need the Faith.

You have no idea how much nastier I would be if I was not a Catholic. Without supernatural aid I would hardly be a human being.                                                                                  - Evelyn Waugh