04/11/2021
My bulletin column for this weekend: Divine Mercy Sunday
Friends.
Throughout the history of the Church, a spiritual encounter with Christ, or with Our Lady, are surprisingly widespread. The Church will very rarely consider these apparitions as something other than private revelations meant to impact only the individual seer, or seers. But a few, because of their context and impact, resonate so widely that the Church gives strong approbation.
In 1931 the world was in the Great Depression as it also was still reeling from the effects of the First World War. The anomalies of history and economy put Poland right in the heart of the challenges of the time. It was in the Polish setting that Sr. Faustina Kowalska received her first personal apparition of Jesus Christ.
According to her diary an image of the risen Lord was shown to her. In the vision the Lord was shown to her with a heart which emanated with blue and white rays. The rays represent the blood and water (the red and the white respectively) which lowed from Jesus’ side as he died upon the Cross. Faustina wrote in her diary that Jesus told her, “I promise that the soul that will venerate this image will not perish.”
During the jubilee year of 2000, fellow Pole, Pope St. John Paul II, not only canonized St. Faustina, but he also proclaimed to the universal Church that the Second Sunday of Easter would be recognized on the liturgical calendar of the Church as Divine Mercy Sunday. The prayer and spiritual practices of this day are gleaned from the example and writings of St. Faustina. By the proclamation, the Holy Father was affirming the practices which were already enjoying widespread dedication throughout the world.
Without the benefit of much formal education, for years St. Faustina kept a diary of the apparitions. With great consistency her apparitions would call for a focus on the mercy of God. But there was also a call for personal conversion, trust in Jesus, and to show mercy to others. According to St. Faustina, Jesus requested that the Church establish a feast day dedicated to the recognition of God’s mercy.
The devotionalism of Divine Mercy is not limited to this singular Sunday. There is a Novena to offer, a Chaplet to pray (a series of prayers similar to a rosary), and a Holy Hour to make. As part of Pope St. John Paul’s proclamation, there is also a plenary indulgence to be gained by those who receive the Eucharist and celebrate the Sacrament of Penance on Divine Mercy Sunday.
Divine Mercy Sunday is an opportunity for all of us to reflect on the theme of how God’s mercy can help us to overcome sin. This flows from the conversion which merciful forgiveness brings about, and from the hopeful encouragement which the knowledge of God’s mercy brings to our lives. In the Vatican instructions for Divine Mercy Sunday, it says that the feast day is “a perennial invitation to the Christian world to face, with confidence in divine benevolence, the difficulties and trials that mankind will experience in the years to come.”
Given the state of our world, and likely the state of your life, I strongly encourage everyone to take advantage of the prayers, reflections, and gifts of Divine Mercy Sunday.
Easter Blessings to all!
Fr. Paul
