Meditating on Luke 6:36: “Be merciful as your father is merciful.” I saw the following question: “How to be merciful?” Then I remembered the Parable of the Good Samaritan where Jesus responded to the question of the pharisee. “Who is my neighbor?” speaking of the man that was injured by bandits remaining fallen in the road. He concluded with the question: “In your opinion: who was the neighbor to this man?”
—”The one that was merciful to him!”
—”Go and do the same,” concluded Jesus.

What I see in order to learn to be merciful two things are necessary: “The first is observation. I thought in children that I learned to pay to those much older and began to imitate their attitudes, their behavior, therefore, they imitate what they see. We should observe Jesus, His words and His gestures of mercy. We can learn from Him.

Second: Imitation. After we watch attentively the gestures and words of Mercy of Jesus, we begin to imitate them. This way, through imitation we learn from Jesus and we become merciful.

Fr. Antônio Aguilar

Translated from Portuguese