Lord, Have Mercy

Transcript

St. John of Kronstadt explains what it means to pray, “Lord have mercy:”

You hear in church more often than anything the voices of the priests, deacons, readers and singers praying God to have mercy upon us. What does this signify? It signifies that all of us who are in God’s Temple are deserving, by our sins, of God’s punishment, and that before everything—on our coming into the church—we must remember that we are sinners, and have come to the Lord of Heaven and Earth, to our Creator and Benefactor, Whom we have daily and hourly angered by our iniquities, to ask for mercy, each one for himself, and also, in accordance with Christian love, for others.