The pendulum of Christian salvation apparently does swing between two focal points: the fearful love towards God and His great MERCY in return. The epitome of the Sermon on the Mount of a pious and virtuous life invites the reward of salvation that is only an allowance or mercy given by the benevolence of God. “ Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy”, Mt.5: 7. “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God-not because of works, lest any man should boast”, Eph.2: 8-9. This grace and gift are nothing but the attributes of mercy that is oozing out of God’s heart upon His handiworks. Love is a synonym of mercy that is a product of the empathy of a pure heart, which is inherently woven within our mould, Jude.2. The empathic feeling towards one’s own fellow being is being precipitated by the adverse predilections that the others are confronting with. Despite suffering generally is an outcome of one’s own commissions and omissions, lending our own heart for the victims is a quality of our inherent mixing that is a built-in of the human nature. This quality of the mind even excels the first commandment of God to human kind to offer sacrifice to God as a prologue of Jesus’ sacrifice on Calvary. “I demand mercy, and not sacrifice…”, Mt.12: 7. Therefore, identifying our own nature in another one is a sign of humbleness that penetrate us to seep into the needs, both seen and unseen, of the victims of circumstances.

God’s everlasting mercy is explicitly exhibited while the institution of Sacrifice was established. “Then you shall make a mercy seat of pure gold….there I will meet with you…cherubim that are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you all…”, Exo.25: 17-22; Lev.16: 2; 1.Chro.28: 11; Heb.9: 5. It is the characteristic satisfaction of a derailed group or groups to claim that going to the church has no relevance because if two or three people pray together in His name at any place get the same reward like the one who go to church and pray. It is not my friends, Jesus come to the Altar and sit on the mercy seat to hear our prayers and supplications that are offered in a prescribed, ritualistic order, displaying that we obey and worship God by giving allegiance to His priestly ambassadors and also flocking together like innocent sheep that follow the Master without hurting one another. The liturgical prayer that complements with individual prayers and clean life is the pre-requisites for a superlative lifestyle. A group prayer alone where there are no amenities for liturgical prayers is not adequate enough for a healthy spiritual life; it is a sign of rebellion against God in bailing out of the clerical worship and find refuge in one’s own comfort zone that is a synonym of megalomania.

Man’s Needs:
Man is never alone in any fraction of a moment that he gets in this planet. As man is an inexplicable product of this earth and the cosmos, his body is certainly run by Pancha bhuthangal, in spite the Spirit of God is the catalyst and participant that synchronies the body, mind and the spirit of man. Just like the embryo is in the womb of its mother, man is an embryo that is to find its birth in Paradise at the ripeness of time. As long as we remain as unripe fruits, we need to absorb so many inevitable minerals and elements that are out there for our spiritual and mental metamorphosis. Unless we willingly accept all these essentials and basic primary needs, our growth is definitely dwarfed in great dimensions. Just as a female depends on the male of its kind for its affinitive physical growth, man’s social intercourse with the fellow human beings is the only way of maturing his developments in various vistas of our social intercourse. The human being that lives alone in animal kingdom are proved by experiences as a four-footed animal that walks only on four feet and incapable of speaking. Man’s maturity comes with the age, experience and association with his species at large, Jas.3: 17; 1.Pet.2: 10. Besides, man is thinking and cooking animal that depends on its association, help, support and many other related matters with his own species. This is why consumerism that has become the priority of our life: making and spending money, comforting others and eating and offering palatable foods for our growth.

There are, therefore, two types of needs for man: firstly, the physical needs that include air, water, food, and so on. Giving even a drop of water to the needy is a service to God. To participate and sharing in the mental suffering and physical and man-made sufferings is a great help at the appropriate times of one’s crossroads in life. If we miss that chance at its appointed time in stretching our hands, we may not get another chance of offering our help so also solacing others at the time of their mental turbulence is a Good Samaritan work during the time of their unforeseen ordeals. If we cut short of our helping hand, God gives that opportunity to somebody else who is there waiting at the door. A Good Samaritan work involves mostly both physical as well as intrinsic needs. Man is the only cooking animal because he is a social apparatus that is guided by the Spirit of God.

Religious Necessities:
The second necessity that is intrinsic and histrionic comes only with the spiritual life and the art of learning, writing, observing and inter-mingling for exploring the frontiers of knowledge and the wisdom of jurisprudence in various realms that conjure up for a righteous life. The co-mingling that enhances one’s intellectual and co-breeding IQ to its zenith is the foundation of happiness on earth. The family is the basic unit that makes a human animal a perfect man from the crudities of this animal life. Just as Jesus gives His Holy Body to His spouse the church, the married couple exchanges their body to each other for their mutual dependence for growth and happiness. The same way of venerating the mystical body of Christ, one ought to treat his sex or the body of the other and vice versa as something sacred, the visible via- media primary relationship that the couple begins their life with. Christ is the head and the church is the body, in the same way man is the head and woman the body. Man, therefore is the head of the household. The hidden nucleus that st. Paul delineates is a mystical truth. Christ is the head and the church is the body. Just as the church members eat and drink the Holy Body and blood of Christ, wife participates in the body and blood of her husband for conception that is the means of the propagation of our race. This is why the sexual organs of man and woman are created in such way that one gives and the other one receives as agents of God in conceiving children for the Creator. I have limitations in giving a meticulous explanation to the readers how this giving and receiving process take place lucidly because the topic is too delicate.

Numberless thanks to the Almighty for designing and shaping our genetic organs in such a way that one gives and the other one receives, so that the works of God for replenishing the earth with the children of God continues till the demise of Death. If the receiver overpowers the charge of the giver in giving the Divine Body of Christ to the giver, it is to be understood that the time is overripe for its finish. Putting the horse in front of the cart is the only logistics that approves the validity of the equality of the decisions-making venues of the spiritual arena and women’s ordination. The female ordination and gay clergy is the last milepost for the coming of the Lord, Mt.24: 15. While the lethal plagues like chicken guinea, dengue fever and other sicknesses are infecting over the believers of the ‘God’s country’ (Kerala), the religious hierarchy hurricane with the issue of equality in blessing with the decision- making areas that leads to women’s ordination, just like the disciples were feuding over the leadership tussles, while Jesus was agonizing over the crucifixion that He had to undergo.

Despite sex is a physical need, its magnetism that welds the human relationship to a magnified field is inexplicable and incalculable in our imagination, the basement that kindle one’s spiritual gold mine, since raising up children in God’s ways is a missionary work. The sacrament of matrimony is a replica of the Groom- Bride relationship between Christ and the church. One has to have enough depth of knowledge about the purity of sex that visibly serves as the symbolic functions of the mystical body that we participate within our worshipping life. The final doom of humanity is a product of the disobedience of the Divine commandments and laws and the amorousness and profligacy of sexual relationship that began only after the fall of our first parents. The Pre-marital and extra-marital relationship that mars the spouse-to-spouse relationship is the founding stone of our destruction that eventually destroy this world. The sex corruptions of dating and its aftermath that encroached into the religious arena as equality in decision- making venues and female ordination paved the way for torpedoing the visible sign of the Groom -Bride relationship in our church worship. Such unholy alliance that cut the taproot of the sanctity of life evaporated the mercy that Jesus showers to His children.

‘Kamam’, the impulsive sexuality, is the root cause of all other vices that branched out into different forms of passions after the disgrace that preyed in Eden. The congenital problems and their vibrations that has no bounds and limits has degenerated a world that God created and handed over to us. While sex is the mother of mankind, it has become the mother of all evils lately because ‘the greatest evil is found where the highest good has been corrupted’. The modern madding crowd that has no knowledge of God’s love and mercy is a primary product of the corrupt derailed sexual pleasures that invite the desecration of the holy religious and physical life on earth.

If we pray for changing the sanctity of the vivid pattern of the body mechanism and its operational techniques that once He designed, no way that mercy is shown from Above. Mercy and forgiveness is given for the momentary weaknesses of man, not for the cultivated trading of sins on a perpetual basis. Forgiveness is certain, but only for the repented sins, provided that the guarantee is given that such perpetrations won’t recur again and again. But what remedy is there while the whole globe has become a shepherdless flock that secularizes and spiritualizes most of the lethal seven deadly vices? One sin that manufactures into many other sins brings in legions of devil’s army that make our life miserable on earth. People harboring sins one after the other shouldn’t expect that a merciful Lord forgive them all when sins have become a social industry. Despite God is not expected to show mercy for repeated and cultivated sins, we are bound to show mercy and love towards every fellow being, as we are also a part and parcel of the sin industry that revolutionalised the natural life of today. The Lord’s mercy depends on how every sinning human being shows mercy to his brethren by the contrition of the heart. The prayer, “Forgive our sins as we also have forgiven our debtors” does explicitly propagate that God shows mercy to us when we show mercy to others.

Types of Mercy:

1. Mercy to sinners:
   Don’t judge others lest we also be judged are the compendiums of mystical values. Hate sins, not the sinners is a general principle because of our own inherent infirmities that make judgement on subjective impulses. Every human being is an exponent of various enzymes, minerals, and many other secretions of glands, and so on. These are the ones that hammer out the individual distinctions and differences that carve out our personality, despite we all are created in the image and likeness of God. Both congenital and environmental factors play important roles in shaping out the salient individual landmarks even if the parents of the individuals are the same? According to the Ayurvedic treatment, man is constrained within the four cholics: Vayvu, Kabham, pitham, vatham. Man’s character is moulded on the basis of these factors, particularly the role played by the glandular secretions.

   As every fluctuations of our thought make secretions and pump them out into our bloodstream, the actions and reactions of each individual vary in tune with one’s thoughts, words and actions and the nervous system. Every thought, word and action make an imprint of him or her in our system, hence everyone is different in his make up. Therefore, we can’t have the same yardstick to measure each individual on the same scale. The variation of individual traits and character is a mystery that only God can analyze and foresee. “And that servant who knew his master’s will, but did not make ready or act according to his will, shall receive a severe beating. But he who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, shall receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much is given, of him will much be required; and of him to whom men commit much they will demand the more”, Lk.12: 47-48. The sum total of our life is outlined in one short mystical statement: ‘Don’t judge others’.

2. Mercy to our persecutors:
   Jesus is the real role model who prayed for His adversaries. Mercy should flow to the benevolent ones as well to the malefactors.

3. Secular Laws and religious commands:
   Whether pertaining to the secular or religious commandments, they invite us to abide their faith in the lawgivers. Infringing upon the laws invite severe penalties and punishments because ignorance of the law is not an excuse. Just as the secular authorities make aware of the laws with their subjects by various means, the religious hierarchies make us familiar with the expectations of the faith one has to practice in serving the Heavenly ruler. While the earthly rulers anticipate for a healthy body, the religious authorities want us to make a healthy soul in a healthy body because both soul and body are the integral parts for our afterlife. Unawareness of spiritual laws is also not an excuse because the whole lifetime is given and carefully looked after meticulously for inculcating the absolute faith in our Father. The Sin of commission and sin of omission are both treated as crimes. Omissions of religious requirements certainly tell upon the transformations of our soul from crudeness to spiritual refinement. As prayer is the breathing of the soul, it inhales the divine oxygen and exhales the filthy carbon dioxide that is an impediment for the purity of the soul.

4. Mental and physical sufferings:
   We are born to live and serve others. If our prayerful life doesn’t complement with the service of the needy, our religious life become incomplete and imperfect unless one is a hermit pleasing God by his adoring reclusive lifestyle. Thus the former and the latter part of the Ten Commandments must go hand in hand at every moments of our life. As we are incapable of making judgements on others due to our imperfections, our only duty is to help others in their mental and physical needs that make us realize that we are only big zeros. The inner sufferings and frequent and rootless uneasiness that require the association and mutual participation from his own fellow beings for sublimating the inner agonies should be shared by our complementing comforts and advice. So also, as we are the children of the same Father, we ought to share our wealth and money for uplifting the poor and the vulnerable. This will remain as a vital deficiency, unless we serve others faithfully by sharing our possessions. Because we are run by the breath that a merciful God provides, we have no possessions or right in this plane of life that only invites us to be a part of our harmonious communal life with others. It is not our mercy but the breathing necessity of having a sharing and reciprocating life with others. As we revolve as a satellite planet of God’s mercy, we also should love and live on the bread of boundless mercy. The benevolent God never entertain merciless masters, nor does the Heavenly Master treat them kindly.

5. Apocalyptic Trends:
   Two world wars that uprooted and scattered the global community as mere slaves of the predators, spy works and espionage became the tools of our survival techniques. None trusts none is the gospel of this extreme Kaliyuga era. Despite there are millions who are merciful to the suffering humanity behind the curtain, the majority people who are at the forefront do their peripheral duties for the sake of their jobs and wages, not because of their love and affection towards their brethren. Love already is run out of our secular and religious institutions and social ethos because the projection of the self is the religion of the day. Predating upon the vulnerability of the innocent and the downtrodden is the modus operandi that hurt the helpless and the mute majority. In this age of religious aggrandizement, the ones that play the roles of John the Baptist and apostles will be tortured mercilessly to the core. Whistle blowing that penetrates to the inner core of one’s private life uses spy and espionage works as the main weapons of everyday life of this doomsday culture. The war against terrorism is a good ploy for the destruction of the one who stand for serene principles and set code of life. A committed and sincere Christian cannot breathe safely because of the interference of the majority thugs who smile widely at one’s face and look like innocent flowers which hide the serpent underneath them.

There are governments, clubs, institutions and unions elected by the ass majority, but they play the harp for the political parties and the unions that are run by a handful of selective individuals, reaping glory and money for themselves. The maturity of animals to cosmetic manhood that predate upon the weak is the order of the doomsday life. Is there much difference between totalitarianism and a self-governed set up of ‘of the people by the people and for the people’ of a utopian concept? In self-rule governance people do havoc to their own soul and body by leading a Bohemian lifestyle, whereas in autocratic countries the wild ones hunt the humble and preyed –ones, torturing their body and habitat, but cannot crush the spirit of individuals. The difference is that one is soul slavery and the other one is body slavery. The flowering of George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ is the net outcome of the loose passions of our flesh that govern the God’s species at the twilight hour of the time. In prophet Daniel’s prophesy it is the last stage of the Iron Age that swallows the kingly metals: gold, silver and bronze, kingship of gold, silver and bronze. While the cruel empires of gold and silver were spreading over certain areas of certain continents during those eras, the empire of bronze and Iron are global in the geographical dimensions and monstrosities of the last age. We understand the nature of our carnalities only when the king of animals, the Beast from the nether world, rule us with its iron claws and chew us with its iron teeth. This animality that encroached into the family life is the last nail that is struck on the coffin of our sojourn that is underlined by our irreligiousness and blasphemous betrayal. Just like His own household crucified Jesus, the foolish wise virgins also will crucify the Holy Spirit at the end of the day.

“Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise thee”, Ps.63: 3. “And his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation”, Lk.1: 50. Wisdom, mercy, love and peace are only to those who fear and worship Him since God’s mercy is larger and longer than our life. “Let us with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need”, Heb.4: 16. This life in this planet and afterlife hangs on the golden coin of mercy. Unless we become a fountain of mercy to our brethren, the mercy from above also is bound to be sterile. What goes out will certainly comes back. “With the loyal thyself show thyself loyal; with the blameless man thou doest show thyself blameless; with the pure thou doest show thyself pure; and with the crooked thou doest show thyself perverse”, Ps.18: 25-26. Tit for tat is a universal law that is only proved zealously at the Day of Last Judgement. Mercy is a gift of God, not a right that is only a utopian concept.

[The Contents of the Article are sole perspective of the author]