The Works of Mercy or Acts of Mercy are actions and practices which Christianity, in general, expects all believers to perform, and are a means of grace, which aid in sanctification.
The Works of Mercy have been traditionally divided into two categories, with seven elements each: the Corporal Works of Mercy, which concern the material needs of others, and the Spiritual Works of Mercy, which concern the spiritual needs of others.
These duties (e.g., feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless) are enjoined by many Christian churches on their adherents, including Roman Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity, Lutheranism, the Anglican Communion, and Methodism.
Beginning in the 20th century, the Roman Catholic tradition saw an extension of the framework for the traditional Works of Mercy with the establishment of the devotion to Divine Mercy and encyclicals such as Dives in Misericordia.
Read more about Works Of Mercy: Biblical Basis, Methodism
Famous quotes containing the words works of, works and/or mercy:
“The ancients of the ideal description, instead of trying to turn their impracticable chimeras, as does the modern dreamer, into social and political prodigies, deposited them in great works of art, which still live while states and constitutions have perished, bequeathing to posterity not shameful defects but triumphant successes.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Reason, the prized reality, the Law, is apprehended, now and then, for a serene and profound moment, amidst the hubbub of cares and works which have no direct bearing on it;Mis then lost, for months or years, and again found, for an interval, to be lost again. If we compute it in time, we may, in fifty years, have half a dozen reasonable hours.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“God is not Love in the East. He is Power, although Mercy may temper it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)