Sunday of Divine Mercy
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Second Sunday of Easter. Sunday of Divine Mercy
Each year, on the Second Sunday of Easter—the last
day of the Easter Octave—the Church celebrates the Sunday of Divine Mercy.
On this day, we contemplate the fullness of the Paschal Mystery—Christ’s Passion, death, and Resurrection. The basis of the whole Easter Mystery is the merciful love of God.From the beginning of creation, throughout Scripture, and most perfectly in the life, Passion, death and Resurrection of his Son, Jesus, God has been revealed as love itself. In His infinite love for us, God desires nothing more than to forgive our sins and offer us His mercy.
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"...If you return to the LORD, your kinfolk and your children will find mercy with their captors and return to this land. The LORD, your God, is gracious and merciful and he will not turn away his face from you if you return to him.”
2 Chronicles 30: 9
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A History of Mercy
In his 1980 encyclical Dives in Misericordia (“Rich in Mercy”), Pope John Paul II writes,
“Believing in [God’s] love means believing in mercy. For mercy is an indispensible dimension of love; it is as it were love’s second name and, at the same time, the specific manner in which love is revealed” (No. 7).Salvation history is rich with evidence of this truth. From the beginning, the Covenant that the Lord established with the people of Israel reflected the nature of His love. As He gives the Ten Commandments to Moses, He promises to show “mercy to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments” (Exodus 20:6, RSV).
Later, again to Moses, God gives this description of himself: “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy and faithfulness, keeping merciful love for thousands” (Exodus 34:6-7, RSV).
As the Old Testament narratives continue, we see the people of Israel habitually turning to God in their sin and misery as a child turns to his father, trusting in his merciful forgiveness.
King David sings of the Lord who is “merciful and gracious,” “slow to anger and abounding in mercy” and who does not deal with us according to our sins (see Psalms 103, Psalms 145). Even the prophets, who preach a message of destruction to Israel for its infidelity, speak also of the mercy that the Lord wishes to lavish upon it if only the people will return to Him (see Jeremiah 3:12; Hosea 14:3).
Although the reality of God’s great compassion is unmistakably established and confirmed in the history of the Old Testament, it is the coming of His Son that gives the world the actual incarnation of this love and mercy. Pope John Paul’s encyclical observes:
“Christ confers on the whole of the Old Testament tradition about God’s mercy a definitive meaning. Not only does he speak of it … but above all he himself makes it incarnate and personifies it. He himself, in a certain sense, is mercy” (No. 2).
Christ’s entire life can be seen as a testimony to the mercy of God.
At His conception, Our Lady sang her great hymn of thanksgiving: “His mercy is from age to age to those who fear Him.” (Luke 1:50).
At the start of Christ’s public ministry, He proclaimed, “release to the captives” (Luke 4:18, RSV), and later, “blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy” (Matthew 5:7).
In the words of His last agony, Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34). Indeed, the presence of Jesus Christ in the world reveals to us the face of God, who is the “Father of mercies” (2 Corinthians 1:3, RSV).
-Simply Catholic, Lydia Borja
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For the judgment is merciless to one who has not shown mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.
James 2: 13
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The Origin of Divine Mercy Sunday
Saint Sister Maria Faustina Kowalska: Mankind’s need for the message of Divine Mercy took on dire urgency in the 20th Century, when civilization began to experience an “eclipse of the sense of God” and, therefore to lose the understanding of the sanctity and inherent dignity of human life. In the 1930s, Jesus chose a humble Polish nun, Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, to receive private revelations concerning Divine Mercy that were recorded in her Diary.
Saint John Paul II explains:"This was precisely the time when those ideologies of evil, nazism and communism, were taking shape. Sister Faustina became the herald of the one message capable of off-setting the evil of those ideologies, that fact that God is mercy—the truth of the merciful Christ. And for this reason, when I was called to the See of Peter, I felt impelled to pass on those experiences of a fellow Pole that deserve a place in the treasury of the universal Church."
~ Pope Saint John Paul II, Memory and Identity (2005)
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Divine Mercy Sunday: Saint Faustina’s Diary records 14 occasions when Jesus requested that a Feast of Mercy (Divine Mercy Sunday) be observed, for example:
My daughter, tell the whole world about My inconceivable mercy. I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and shelter for all souls, and especially for poor sinners. On that day the very depths of My tender mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the Fount of My mercy. The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion shall obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment. … Let no soul fear to draw near to Me. … It is My desire that it be solemnly celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter. Mankind will not have peace until it turns to the Fount of My Mercy.
(Diary, no. 699)On May 5, 2000, five days after the canonization of Saint Faustina, the Vatican decreed that the Second Sunday of Easter would henceforth be known as Divine Mercy Sunday.
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
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The Origin of the Divine Mercy Image
The Image: Jesus appeared to Saint Faustina in a vision, with his right hand raised in a blessing and his left touching his garment above his heart. Red and white rays emanate from his heart, symbolizing the blood and water that was poured out for our salvation and our sanctification.
The Lord requested that “Jesus, I trust in You” be inscribed under his image. Jesus asked that his image be painted and venerated throughout the world: “I promise that the soul that will venerate this image will not perish” (Diary, no. 48) and “By means of this image I will grant many graces to souls” (Diary, no. 742).
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
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SAINT MARIA FAUSTINA KOWALSKA
Sister Faustina was a young, uneducated nun in a convent of the Congregation of Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in Poland during the 1930s. She came from a poor family that struggled during the years of World War I. She had only three years of simple education, so hers were the humblest tasks in the convent, usually in the kitchen or garden.
However, she received extraordinary revelations — or messages — from our Lord Jesus. Jesus asked Sr. Faustina to record these experiences, which she compiled into notebooks. These notebooks are known today as the Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, and the words contained within are God's loving message of Divine Mercy.
Though the Divine Mercy message is not new to the teachings of the Church, Sr. Faustina's Diary sparked a great movement, and a strong and significant focus on the mercy of Christ.
Saint John Paul II canonized Sister Faustina in 2000, making her the "first saint of the new millennium." Speaking of Sr. Faustina and the importance of the message contained in her Diary, the Pope called her "the great apostle of Divine Mercy in our time."
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National shrine of Divine mercy
The National Shrine of The Divine Mercy is a Catholic shrine located in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The Catholic priests and and brothers of the Congregation of Marian Fathers of the Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary have resided on Eden Hill in Stockbridge, since June 1944.
VISIT the website for the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy.
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The diary of Saint Sister Faustina
VIEW HERE the Diary of Saint Sister Faustina.
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