The Popular Use of the Term Mercy

The adjective merciful refers to somebody or some event that brings someone relief from something unpleasant. It also has as its synonyms: forgiving, compassionate, clement, pitying, forbearing, lenient, humane, mild, kind, softhearted, tenderhearted, gracious, sympathetic, humanitarian, liberal, tolerant, indulgent, generous, magnanimous, benign, benevolent, and more.

First of all, we should know that the term mercy is a freelance usage of the French word merci from 1066, referring to the spirit and action of compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm. When we apply it to God with the light of scriptures and Christian tradition, we name it grace to denote the fact that God is blessing us despite the fact that we do not deserve it. Mercy is deliverance from judgment. Grace is extending kindness to the unworthy. And when God is not punishing us as our sins deserve, we call it "mercy" (Ref. Online Blog 'Got Questions? org).

So many centuries, millions of us have been accustomed to using this term in our private and liturgical prayers. Undoubtedly, the origin of it is our scriptures, which were sharpened and shaped by Christian traditions. From the second century, as Arrian writes in Diatribæ Epicteti, II, 7, the Greek Kyrie Eleison, translated in English "Lord have mercy," has been used by Christians in invoking God. This Christian use was based on the scriptural usages of the same, both in OT (for example, Psa. 4:2, 6:3, 9:14, 25:11, 121:3; Isa. 33:2; Tob. 8:10) and NT (Matt. 9:27, 20:30, 15:22; Mark 10:47; Luke 16:24, 17:13).

This formula of prayer or litany most of the time in the liturgies is used by us as a parrot's rattling, not fully grasping its meaning and background. While all the Eastern rites use the form Kyrie Eleison constantly, Roman Catholic rites, especially in the Mass, this is recited or sung before important parts of the Eucharist, for example, at its beginning and before Holy Communion.

Surely the only time most of us recite it from the depths of our soul is when we feel guilty of our sinfulness and when we think of our final hours. And that too many times is handled as a source of getting a cathartic experience to release my emotional disturbances. But as any other strategies offered to us by the Church, the recitation of "Lord have mercy" contains in it some amazing spiritual in-depth treasure that will assist us in attaining our jubilee year goal. To benefit the most out of the application of "mercy" in our life this jubilee year and the years to come, we should first get into mercy's real meaning and its scriptural background.

Viewing Mercy through Biblical Spectrum

The Hebrew word [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], HESED or CHESED used in the Hebrew Bible, is one of the richest, most powerful words in the Old Testament. Our beloved authors of scriptural books, due to their human ability or inability and being enamored of their close encounter with God's HESED, tried their best to explain it by many nouns and verbs available at their times, using allegorical or metaphoric poetic styles to personify the divine activities contained in the Hebrew word HESED.

Historically, the Hebrew term CHESED has proved itself a very challenging one to be translated in its full meaning. Biblical scholars have often complained about this difficulty, especially in translating it into English, because it really has no precise equivalent in our language. However, over the years, many tried their best to represent it with all its fullness. English versions usually try to represent it with such words as "loving kindness," "enduring mercy," "steadfast love," "goodness," "favor," "great love without end" and sometimes "faithfulness," "loyalty," but the full meaning of the word cannot be conveyed without an explanation.

As the development of biblical translations in the pursuit of right and relevance, not only to original manuscripts, but also to easier application in particular age and culture, we can see that the original term CHESED has been handled differently both in OT and NT. Just one example: While the OT translation upheld CHESED as covenantal loyalty — "For it is loyalty that I desire, not sacrifice, and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings" (Hos. 6:6) — in NT, to emphasize the humans' response to the covenant, translators use mercy for CHESED "Go and learn the meaning of the words, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' I did not come to call the righteous but sinners" (Matt. 9:13) and "If you knew what this meant, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned these innocent men" (Matt. 12:7). All these translated words are taken from NABRE.

As the Biblical Translation History testifies, the first translators of the OT (third century BC) in Greek Septuagint version pervasively used the word ELEOS, meaning CHESED as "mercy" and "pity." When Christianity was established and spread to the world from the banks of the Thames River in fourth century AD, Jerome, in his Vulgate Latin translation of the entire Bible — OT and NT — used MISERICORDIA (mercy) to translate the Greek term ELEOS (ref. to the article by Norman H. Snaith, reproduced from A Theological Word Book of the Bible, edited by Alan Richardson (New York: MacMillan, 1951). From those years onward, translators, keeping always the Hebrew CHESED in mind, began coining variety of...