What's the difference between blessing and mercy?

Blessing


Definition:

  • (p. pr. & vb. n.) of Bless
  • (v. t.) The act of one who blesses.
  • (v. t.) A declaration of divine favor, or an invocation imploring divine favor on some or something; a benediction; a wish of happiness pronounces.
  • (v. t.) A means of happiness; that which promotes prosperity and welfare; a beneficent gift.
  • (v. t.) A gift.
  • (v. t.) Grateful praise or worship.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Some parents are blessed with a soul that lights up every time their little precious brings them a carefully crafted portrait or home-made greetings card.
  • (2) Attorneys for people caught on the US’s sprawling terrorism watchlists are expressing concern that the latest tactic by gun control advocates is blessing the legitimacy of a process they say threatens civil rights.
  • (3) I often remind him that after a test or a difficulty, blessings arrive.
  • (4) The move, first mooted two months ago, has been instigated with Jol's blessing and the new man was quick to insist he had spent "many hours" talking with his compatriot prior to accepting the position, even if his arrival effectively dilutes the manager's powerbase at the club.
  • (5) Unable to tap international markets, with its banks forced to rely on limited emergency funding provided on a week-by-week basis with the blessing of the ECB, it is fast running out of cash.
  • (6) The fact that property is unequally distributed so many people don't have blessed "property rights" gets airbrushed from the theory.
  • (7) Waitrose evokes strong opinions: from sniffy derision about the supermarket's perceived airs and graces to expressions of joy from middle-class incomers when their gentrified area is blessed with a branch.
  • (8) Photograph: Alex Lake for Observer Food Monthly Sky Sports’ managing director, Barney Francis, added: “We wish Gary all the very best as he returns to football with our blessing and begins his managerial career with Valencia.
  • (9) May God bless you all, and may God continue to bless America.
  • (10) It is a sacred moment, and you feel blessed merely to have witnessed it.
  • (11) He’s gifted, a blessed young man with incredible hand speed and power.
  • (12) We felt blessed,” said Rebecca, pulling out another family picture in which a smiling Sarah leans her head against her mother’s shoulder, her younger siblings crowing around them.
  • (13) He often claimed that God had blessed him with the gift of the delayed hangover, one that kicked in only when he had done his day's work.
  • (14) While big businesses have enjoyed access to new couriers, Royal Mail itself eventually reached such a dire state that the Hooper report urged the government to rewrite the law to clarify that competition was a mixed blessing.
  • (15) Rate of progression of dementia was determined in 77 patients by repeated administration of the Blessed Dementia Scale (BDS).
  • (16) For whatever reason, the team is not gelling, despite substantial financial backing in the summer and the dressing room being blessed with a huge amount of quality.
  • (17) I wish him - with Caroline and the family - every blessing, and hope that the church of England and the Anglican communion will share my pleasure at this appointment and support him with prayer and love."
  • (18) Meena Raman of the Malaysia-based Third World Network told IPS: "Given the stance of the United States thus far in the Rio+20 negotiations, and the position they have taken in the climate change negotiations in Durban, it may perhaps be a blessing that President Obama is not coming to Rio."
  • (19) It was an unbelievable feeling,” Keating told Associated Press, adding she felt “totally blessed and loved” by the pope.
  • (20) Quite a number of people brought up in the emotional straitjackets of the English upper classes found blessed relief in the permission the Holy Spirit gave them to weep or laugh and gibber and faint in public.

Mercy


Definition:

  • (n.) Forbearance to inflict harm under circumstances of provocation, when one has the power to inflict it; compassionate treatment of an offender or adversary; clemency.
  • (n.) Compassionate treatment of the unfortunate and helpless; sometimes, favor, beneficence.
  • (n.) Disposition to exercise compassion or favor; pity; compassion; willingness to spare or to help.
  • (n.) A blessing regarded as a manifestation of compassion or favor.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The law and justice minister, Anisul Huq, said the 73-year-old leader was hanged after he refused to seek mercy from the country’s president.
  • (2) But if May rushes headlong into a panicked triggering of article 50 without a clear idea of what she wants out of negotiations, she will have left us at the mercy of 27 countries who have heard little but table-thumping and empty threats from ministers.
  • (3) He called for care for the environment to be added to the seven spiritual works of mercy outlined in the Gospel that the faithful are asked to perform throughout the pope’s year of mercy in 2016.
  • (4) But Ruby Tweedie, another local resident, said: "There have been so many doubts about his guilt that it's only fair that the man, who has only a few months to live, should be shown mercy."
  • (5) Constant ribbing about his private life was compromising Deayton's position as the show's "holier-than-thou" host, who showed no mercy towards politicians or celebrities caught in a similar position, the corporation added.
  • (6) The 70-year-old describes a life of comfortable detachment from mainstream society, but with long periods in which he and his 74-year-old wife, Shin-yeol, are at the mercy of the elements.
  • (7) We're kind of at Mother Nature's mercy at this point," said Tom Kruschke, another fire department spokesman .
  • (8) Without him, we were at the mercy of increasingly nervous investors, and our Hollywood film-making future hung in the balance.
  • (9) Students of privatisation over the years have learnt to be grateful for small mercies.
  • (10) The mayor is a good person, but no one invited him, certainly not officially … The pope was furious.” While the prank provided fodder to critics of the mayor, it also underscored a more serious issue between the Vatican and Rome just a few months ahead of the church’s jubilee year of mercy, which begins on 8 December.
  • (11) The only mercy was they would have known little about it.
  • (12) After Hollande spent two hours on French radio in a patent relaunch of his presidency, a film producer announced that a biopic of Trierweiler’s revenge memoir, Merci Pour Ce Moment (Thank You For This Moment), is now in the works.
  • (13) Hunt replied: "Merci hopefully when consultation over we can have coffee like old days!"
  • (14) "The legal system has lost all sense of mercy and justice and it has been replaced with punitiveness and vindictiveness," Stinebrickner-Kauffman told Mail Online .
  • (15) If Whittingdale had any honour, any mercy, and any basic human decency, he would murder David Attenborough himself today, in his bed, to spare him any further suffering.
  • (16) It was not something that was talked about.” Thomson added: “It was mercifully quick and I remember first of all feeling surprise, then fear, then horror as I realised I quite simply couldn’t escape – because he was stronger than me, and there was no sense even initially of any sexual desire from him, which I suppose, looking back, again I find odd.” The MP said she had felt “absolutely numbed” and ashamed but told no one about the incident.
  • (17) Several survivors and family members of the victims who were flown to the US testified this week , and one cursed Bales for attacking villagers as some slept and others screamed for mercy.
  • (18) This meant that if the rebels started abusing people, the Misca would withdraw, leaving the civilian population at their mercy.
  • (19) Sitting in a side street listening to the sound of loud blasts and gunfire emanating from Nariman House, Rakash Bhaud, the local leader of the far-right Hindu party Shiv Sena, blamed the central government for the failures that, he said, had left them at the mercy of Pakistan-backed terrorists.
  • (20) More emphasis on mercy is needed in this case, surely, and less on killing.