Happy Easter to all of you! This weekend I will be away leading a parish retreat in North Carolina on the theme of God’s mercy. That is especially fitting, because this weekend is Divine Mercy Sunday. In those retreat talks I will be drawing from St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Aquinas teaches us that God’s mercy is not simply God feeling sorry for us. It is God acting to heal what we cannot heal ourselves. If Aquinas gives us a theology and ethics of mercy, Bernard gives us a spiritual psychology of mercy. He helps us see why so often we fail at mercy and how God can reform our hearts.