Divine Mercy Sunday a natural to follow Easter

By Patricia Kasten
Compass Associate Editor

The Second Sunday of Easter (March 30) is Divine Mercy Sunday, instituted by Pope John Paul on May 5, 2000. This is the eighth year that the universal church will mark Divine Mercy Sunday.

	Divine Mercy Sunday

The devotion derives from private revelations to St. Faustina Kowalska, recorded in her diary in the 1930s. She reported that Jesus appeared to her and requested devotion to his divine mercy. "I have opened my heart as a living fountain of mercy," she recorded him saying. "Let all souls draw life from it."

She further described an image to be used of Jesus, with his hand raised in blessing and two rays of light emanating from his sacred heart to illuminate the globe. The rays are red and white: red to symbolize his blood and white for the water that cleanses souls. Both flowed from Jesus' heart after his death on the cross (Jn 19:31-37). The Divine Mercy image also bears the caption, "Jesus, I trust in you" (Jezu ufam Tobie in Polish).

The Jesus whom Sr. Faustina saw told her to promote devotion to this image, especially on the Sunday after Easter. Sr. Faustina's 600-page diary was published in 1980 - 42 years after her death.

Threatening?

The words Sr. Faustina attributed to Christ in that diary stressed the imperative nature of turning back to his mercy. So strong was her vision that some of its words seemed to threaten those who did not accept Christ's mercy. This, in part, led to the church's suppressing devotions to Divine Mercy in 1959. Even John Paul, as Archbishop of Krakow, said exploring the matter was "as if treading on glass."

In reviewing private revelations like St. Faustina's, we need to remember that they serve only as a guide to faith in God. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that "Throughout the ages, there have been so-called 'private' revelations, some of which have been recognized by the authority of the church. They do not belong, however, to the deposit of faith. It is not their role to improve or complete Christ's definitive Revelation, but to help live more fully by it in a certain period of history. Guided by the magisterium of the Church, the sensus fidelium knows how to discern and welcome in these revelations whatever constitutes an authentic call of Christ or his saints to the Church" (CCC, no. 67).

This "sense of the faithful" is what led to continued devotions to Divine Mercy after Sr. Faustina's death. The Divine Mercy devotion was close to the heart of Pope John Paul, who opened Sr. Faustina's sainthood cause while he was Archbishop of Krakow.

Clarified

In 1978, six months before John Paul II was elected pope, the Vatican was able to clarify the public understanding of what was being promoted by Sr. Faustina's devotion and subsequently accepted the Divine Mercy devotions. Afterwards, the sainthood cause for Sr. Faustina was able to proceed and she was canonized on April 30, 2000. At that time, Pope John Paul also designated the Second Sunday of Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday, to be initiated in 2001.

Pope John Paul later said, in his homily on that first Divine Mercy Sunday in 2001, that "through the mystery of this wounded heart, the restorative tide of God's merciful love continues to spread over the men and women of our time. Here alone can those who long for true and lasting happiness find its secret."

Faith in the mercy of God is fitting for Christ's modern disciples, especially during the Easter Season. Divine Mercy Sunday falls on the octave of Easter, the eighth day of Easter. (Easter is also called "the eighth day.")

Eighth day

This title of "the eighth day" has great religious significance. The prayer before the first reading of the Easter Vigil tells us this: "The seventh day completes the first creation. The eighth day begins the new creation. Thus, the work of creation culminates in the greater work of redemption. The first creation finds its meaning and its summit in the new creation of Christ, the splendor of which surpasses that of the first creation" (Roman missal, no. 24).

The eighth day is the new creation and the risen Christ is the bringer of this new creation. He appeared to the disciples in the Upper Room on Easter and, a week later, he appeared again to show his wounded side to Thomas. Today, all followers of Christ must proclaim the resurrection of "the crucified one."

As John Paul said at Faustina's canonization, "today, too, humanity must welcome into the upper room of history the risen Christ, who shows the wounds of his Crucifixion and repeats: Peace be with you! Humanity must let itself be touched and pervaded by the Spirit given to it by the risen Christ. It is the Spirit who heals the wounds of the heart, pulls down the barriers that separate us from God and divide us from one another, and at the same time, restores the joy of the Father's love and of fraternal unity"

Here is the key to understanding God's mercy: God freely gives us his love and mercy - to the gates of death and beyond - even when we don't deserve it. In Jesus, who died for us and rose again, God lavishes us with blessings and love from God's very heart, the center of divine existence. All that God asks in return is for us to turn toward that mercy and be saved.

(Sources: The New Jerome Biblical Commentary; Dives in Misericordia; Catholic News Service archives; Catechism of the Catholic Church; Catholic News Service and www.divinemercysunday.com.)

To learn how to pray the Divine Mercy novena, which begins Good Friday, visit www.divinemercysunday.com/novena.htm