Today we will consider the fifth Beatitude, “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.” May we all be as Mary, sitting at Jesus’ feet, to hear what He has to say to us in this Beatitude. In the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus stated a simple but very effective truth with which I want to begin. He says later in Matthew 7:17–18 [that] by the fruit you shall know a tree. Now that’s not only true about trees, but it’s also about people in general and about believers in the kingdom of Jesus Christ. How you act, both in public but mostly in private, reveals who you really are.