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alternative Beatitudes, benevolent, benign, clement, compassionate, forbearing, forgiving, generous, gracious, humane, humanitarian, indulgent, Jesus, kind, lenient, liberal, Luke, magnanimous, merciful, mercy, mild, softhearted, sympathetic, tenderhearted, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, tolerant
In this morning’s gospel passage, (LK 6:36-38) Jesus concludes what is sometimes seen as Luke’s “alternative Beatitudes” teaching with a number of qualities/behaviors necessary to the spiritual life. Among his directives is listed “Be merciful.” Over the centuries, mercy has come to be reduced to the concept of pity, as in “Be merciful to us, Lord, for we have sinned.” Interestingly, as I perused the dictionary of synonyms this morning, of twenty similar adjectives only pitying was in less bold print than the others. So as we think of how God wishes us to treat one another today, let us consider that our actions should be forgiving, compassionate, clement, forbearing, lenient, humane, mild, kind, softhearted, tenderhearted, gracious, sympathetic, humanitarian, liberal, tolerant, indulgent, generous, magnanimous, benign, benevolent and, as the dictionary says, “More.”
The Sophia Center for Spirituality 