Mercy And Truth

Puto et vias Domini vultis audire. Multum praesumere videor, si me illas promisero ostensurum. Legitur autem de ipso, quoniam docebit nos vias suas. Cui enim alteri crederetur? Docuit itaque vias suas, cum aperuit labia prophetae, ut diceret: Universae viae Domini, misericordia et veritas. Ita ad singulos, ita ad omnes communiter venit; in misericordia scilicet et veritate. Ubi enim multa jam fuerit de miseratione praesumptio, sed oblivio veritatis; non continuo ibi Deus. Sed neque ubi terror multus ex recordatione veritatis, nulla autem de memoria misericordiae consolatio. Nam neque veritatem tenet, qui misericordiam, ubi vere est, non agnoscit: nec vera esse sine veritate misericordia potest. Itaque ubi misericordia et veritas obviaverunt sibi, sese etiam justitia et pax osculantur; nec is abesse potest, cujus in pace factus est locus. Quanta audivimus et cognovimus (siquidem patres nostri annuntiaverunt nobis) super hac copula tam felici misericordiae et veritatis! Misericordia tua et veritas tua susceperunt me, ait Propheta, et alio loco, Misericordia, inquit, tua ante oculos meos est, et complacui in veritate tua. Sed et Dominus ipse de eo: Veritas mea et misericordia mea cum ipso. Sanctus Bernardus Claraevallensis, Sermo XI in Psalmo XC, De versu undecimo, Quoniam angelis suis mandavit de te ut custodiant te in omnibus viis tuis. Source: Migne PL 183.228b-d

I think you wish to hear of the ways of the Lord. I would seem to presume much if I were to promise to show them myself. But it is written concerning Him, that 'He shall teach us His ways.' 1 To whom else shall it be credited? Thus He taught His ways when he opened the mouths of the prophets, so that it was said: 'All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth.' 2 As to each one, so to all in common He comes, that is, in mercy and truth. For where there is now much presumption of mercy but forgetfulness of truth, there is no abidance of God. And neither is there where there is much terror from the remembrance of truth but no comfort from the memory of mercy. For he does not hold to truth who does not know where mercy truly is. Nor is there true mercy without truth. Thus when mercy and truth have met together, justice and peace do indeed kiss. Nor can the former have been absent when by it the place of peace is made. How much we have heard and known, since our fathers announced it to us, 3 about this joyous bond of mercy and truth. 'Your mercy and truth has taken me up,' 4 says the Prophet, and in another place, 'Your mercy is before my eyes, and I have been pleasing in your truth.' 5 And the Lord says concerning such a man: 'My truth and my mercy are with him.' 6 Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, from Sermon 11 on Psalm 90, On the eleventh verse, 'Because He commanded His angels to guard you in all your ways.' 7 1 Ps 24.9, Micah 4.2 2 Ps 24.10 3 Ps 77.3 4 Ps 39.12 5 Ps 25.3 6 Ps 88.25 7 Ps 90.11