Tradition and Mercy

I don't know about you all but I find that many of the traditional and ancient prayers were for mercy. The Jesus Prayer "Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner." A prayer for mercy. I pray this prayer quite a bit, when I was walking to class I had a pocket devotional I would pray this pray while I walked. From the time it took me to get from my car to class I would have prayed the prayer about 100 times or more. It made me very aware of my everyday sins and how much I really do need mercy.

The same thing is true of praying the Rosary. "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed art the fruit of they womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now at the hour of our death." Mercy is not stated anywhere in the prayer, but the theme is mercy. Not for the Blessed Virgin to have mercy on us, but to ask her Son, our Lord, to have mercy on us.

Even in the Daily Prayer of the Anglican Church, the confession starts out "Most merciful God..." we are pleading for mercy from the beginning, by reminding ourselves that God is merciful. In one set of the Suffrages we say the lines, "Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy. Lord, show us your love and mercy;" And again in the General Thanksgiving we start with, "Almighty God, Father of all mercies," It is God's mercy that sustains us, it was mercy that allowed Adam and Eve to live on after they ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. It is mercy that sent Jesus to die for us, that we might come back to God. It is mercy that keeps us going through out our lives today. And it is mercy that will bring us to the Throne of our Lord and God when we pass away. And it is mercy that will allow us to once again eat from the Tree of Life and live with God on the New Earth.

It seems that the prayer for mercy has been with us since the beginning of the Christian movement. Mercy is a very persent theme in the Catholic/General Epistles. We should join in our forerunners and beg for mercy from God.