Spare me through your mercy, do not punish me through your justice.
Interpretation
The speaker seeks mercy over strict justice, highlighting the value of compassion.
This quote by Anselm of Canterbury expresses a profound plea for mercy rather than justice. It reflects the human desire for understanding and forgiveness, suggesting that while justice is necessary, mercy is preferred as it aligns more closely with the essence of love and compassion that humanity needs to thrive.
In practice
During a speech on forgiveness and redemption, one could quote this to emphasize the importance of mercy.
A Prayer of Anselm My God, I pray that I may so know you and love you that I may rejoice in you. And if I may not do so fully in this life let me go steadily on to the day when I come to that fullness . . . Let me receive That which you promised through your truth, that my joy may be full.
For I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand. For I believe this: unless I believe, I will not understand.
Remove grace, and you have nothing whereby to be saved. Remove free will and you have nothing that could be saved.
I believe in order that I may understand.
A single Mass offered for oneself during life may be worth more than a thousand celebrated for the same intention after death.
I have written the little work that follows . . . in the role of one who strives to raise his mind to the contemplation of God and one who seeks to understand what he believes.
One can acquire everything in solitude except character.
What we see at the cross is the white-hot revelation of the character of God, of his love providing the price that holiness requires. The cross was his means of redeeming lost sinners and reconciling them to himself, but it was also a profound disclosure of his mercy. It is, in Paul’s words, an ‘inexpressible gift’ that leads us to wonder and worship, to praise and adore the God who has given himself to us in this way.
When I was five, I am told, and asked what my favorite things in the world were, I answered, smoked salmon and Bach.
No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.
You experience that you are cut off by being in your mind, and there is a quality that is starving in an individual that is locked in their mind. So when you move to another plane of consciousness which is no longer controlled by your intellect, which is really the sub-system and you move into the meta-system, what you feel at that moment is... you are the universe, you feel merged with it, you feel thick with the moment, and that richness is so fulfilling.
To believe only possibilities is not faith, but mere Philosophy.
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