Take the works that are within reach today rather than the ones that sound impressive. Counsel and instruct where you are actually competent: answer the friend's honest question about the faith instead of deflecting it, teach the catechism to the children in your house, offer to prepare the Sunday readings with someone. Comfort the afflicted by being present and saying little; sitting with the bereaved is most of it. Forgive concretely — the decision not to retell the injury is what forgiveness looks like in practice. Bear patiently the colleague or relative who wrongs you, without narrating the burden to others. Pray for the living and the dead by name: keep a written list, add to it, and pray it at a fixed hour, offering Mass and indulgenced prayers for the holy souls. Admonition is the hardest of the seven and requires standing, charity and privacy; where you lack any of the three, pray and stay silent. And remember that instructing and counselling badly does harm: what you do not know, say you do not know, and point to someone who does.

Misericordiae Vultus lists the seven spiritual works alongside the corporal ones and asks Catholics to rediscover both; Catechesi Tradendae treats the duty of every believer to hand on what has been received.

Mercy

The common practice of the whole Church

Ongoing

mercy