The Meaning Of Sacrifice
When men fully understand the world, they will understand that Jesus was right about sacrifice. They will understand that sacrifice is loss only so long as it is exceptional and forced. When we face sacrifice loyally, when we join in a general economy of sacrifice, when we refuse knowingly to gain except by intending a gain for somebody else, the balance of the total transactions with sacrifice will have passed from the debit to the credit side of the world’s account. This is a vicarious world but not as stupidly conceived by the mediaeval theologians who located the one vicarious act of importance in the death on the cross. Life is vicarious in that its processes begin and continue and end with exchanges of sacrifice, wherever there are moral beings.
—Albion W. Small.
Mercy
The quality of mercy is not strain’d;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless’d;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes:
Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above his sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God Himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.
—William Shakespeare.
Learn the luxury of doing good.
—Oliver Goldsmith.
Alternate Reading: John 13: 31-38. !