Thursday of Lent IV - Mercy
An old man was asked by a certain soldier if God received a penitent man. And after heartening him with many words, he said to him at last, “Tell me, beloved, if your cloak were torn, would you throw it away?” He said, “Nay, but I would patch it and wear it.” The old man said to him, “If you would spare your garment, shall not God have mercy on God's own image?”
Sayings of the Desert Fathers, translated from the Latin with an introduction by Helen Wadell, © 1972.
