“Although a man be full of faith, and chaste, and
sober, and adorned with other still greater decorations, yet if he is not
merciful, he cannot deserve mercy: for the Lord says, blessed are the merciful,
for God shall have mercy upon them [Matthew 5:7]. And when the Son of Man comes
in His Majesty and is seated on His glorious throne, and all nations being
gathered together, division is made between the good and the bad, for what
shall they be praised who stand upon the fight except for works of benevolence
and deeds of love which Jesus Christ shall reckon as done to Himself? For He
who has made man's nature His own, has separated Himself in nothing from man's
humility. And what objection shall be made to those on the left except for
their neglect of love, their inhuman harshness, their refusal of mercy to the
poor? As if those on the right had no other virtues those on the left no other
faults. But at the great and final day of judgment large-hearted liberality and
ungodly meanness will be counted of such importance as to outweigh all other
virtues and all other shortcomings, so that for the one men shall gain entrance
into the Kingdom, for the other they shall be sent into eternal fire.”—
Pope
St. Leo the Great (c.400-461), “Sermon 10,” translated by Charles Lett
Feltoe from Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 12, edited
by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace
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