Following are three examples from The Little Flowers of St. Francis. In each of these examples, the Merciful love of God - manifest in His willingness to forgive sins - is the central theme.
In the High Middle Ages, the theme of the merciful love of God was certainly not the exclusive property of St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Catherine of Siena, and the Dominicans. The early Franciscans also contributed to the Church's meditations on Divine Mercy in their own distinctive way.
When we fail to be merciful, St. Thomas reassures us that Divine Mercy for the repentant is not just adequate or sufficient for us, but superabundant, as infinite as God's nature itself.
St. Augustine was born in 354 A.D. in a small town in what is now Algeria, North Africa. His father was a pagan, but his mother was a devout Christian believer, later canonized and known to the whole Catholic world as St. Monica.
We should remember to be grateful, particularly on the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter the Apostle on Feb. 22, for Christ's loving protection of His Church.
"Our Lady, I know that you are very gracious and cannot help loving us whom your Son and your God has loved with the greatest love. Who can tell how often you allay the ire of the Judge when the virtue of divine justice is about to strike?"
If the gospels show us God's mercy expressed in decisive acts for our salvation (such as the Incarnation, Cross, and Resurrection of His Son), the Apostolic letters in the New Testament are the praise and proclamation of that mercy, and an exhortation to practice it.