HAPPY EASTER! As we bring the Octave of Easter to its conclusion, know that I have kept you in my prayers all week, that you may experience the joy of the Resurrection! Today is also Divine Mercy Sunday. Heeding the call that our risen Lord gave to St. Marie Faustina Kowalska in the 1930’s, the Church decreed on 23 May 2000 that “throughout the world, the Second Sunday of Easter will receive the name Divine Mercy Sunday, a perennial invitation to the Christian world to face, with confidence in divine benevolence, the difficulties and trials that humankind will experience in the years to come.” This certainly speaks to us today, as we pray to Jesus, begging for him to show his mercy on us as we continue to struggle with a wide variety of difficulties and trials in the midst of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
I’m sure you’re familiar with the image of Divine Mercy; it originated from a vision St. Faustina had on Feb. 22, 1931 and will be displayed in our sanctuary all week for your veneration. She recorded the event in her Diary, which she kept at the Lord’s request. In this Diary, she wrote:
In the evening, when I was in my cell, I saw the Lord Jesus clothed in a white garment. One hand [was] raised in the gesture of blessing; the other was touching the garment at the breast. From beneath the garment, slightly drawn aside at the breast, there were emanating two large rays, one red, the other pale. In silence I kept my gaze fixed on the Lord; my soul was struck with awe, but also with great joy. After a while, Jesus said to me, “Paint an image according to the pattern you see, with the signature: ‘Jesus, I trust in You.’ I desire that this image be venerated, first in your chapel, and [then] throughout the world.” (Diary, 47)
So what is the symbolism of the image? The image of Divine Mercy represents the risen Christ whose hands and feet no longer bear the marks of his crucifixion. When asked about the meaning of the rays from his heart, Jesus explained, as St. Faustina recorded in her diary:
“The pale ray stands for the water which makes souls righteous. The red ray stands for the blood which is the life of souls. … These two rays issued forth from the very depths of my tender mercy when my agonized heart was opened by a lance on the cross.” (Diary, 299)
These two rays signify the sacraments of mercy (Baptism and Penance), and the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the life-sustaining food for our spiritual journey. The water speaks of the sacraments of Baptism and Penance, since it is through these sacraments that our souls are washed clean. St. Faustina reported that Jesus further explained: “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God (cf. 1 Cor 6:11). Happy is the one who will dwell in their shelter,” said Jesus, “for the just hand of God shall not lay hold of him” (Diary, 299).
Jesus promised an abundance of blessings to those who venerate this image. As you spend time in veneration, allow me to reflect on this relatively new observance of God’s eternal mercy, why it was introduced and how it can help us in these days of distress and worry. Our need for the message of Divine Mercy took on particular urgency in the beginning of the 20th century. As Pope Saint John Paul II explained so well in his encyclical, Evangelium Vitae, it was a time of “[t]he eclipse of the sense of God and of man” which “inevitably leads to a practical materialism and breeds individualism, utilitarianism and hedonism.” It was a time when so many people began to lose the understanding of the sanctity and inherent dignity of human life. So, in the 1930s, Jesus chose a Polish nun, St. Maria Faustina Kowalska, to receive private revelations concerning Divine Mercy that were recorded in her diary. St. John Paul II explained in Memory and Identity, the last book that he wrote:
This was precisely the time when those ideologies were taking shape. Sister Faustina became the herald of the one message capable of offsetting 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.
Over the course of several years, our Lord appeared to Sr. Faustina. Her Diary records 14 occasions when Jesus requested that a Feast of Mercy (Divine Mercy Sunday) be observed:
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)
As we continue to struggle with the ongoing stresses of the coronavirus pandemic, we may be asking ourselves why this is happening to us? Is God punishing us, as some would say? As we have just completed the Lenten Season and have begun the joyous Easter Season, some of the reflections we find in St. Faustina’s Diary may help us to understand God’s hand in this moment.
First of all, it’s essential to recognize that everything that happens in the created universe is part of God’s plan. Nothing is an accident, nothing is an afterthought. This doesn’t mean that everything is predetermined but rather that God, who is all knowing, is always in charge. Yet, in his infinite love for us, God also gives us free choice and our choices have consequences. Second, it’s important to realize that God’s plan is eternal. We usually think in terms of minutes, hours, days, weeks or years. God’s plan, on the other hand, is beyond time; it is from eternity to eternity. Third, it’s imperative that we admit that God and God’s plan are, in this age, beyond our complete understanding. But, as we reflect on some of the messages Jesus gave to Sr. Faustina, we get helpful insights into God’s mercy, demonstrated so clearly in the suffering and death of his son, Jesus, and how our suffering can lead us to better understand and appreciate God’s mercy. In her Diary, St. Faustina wrote:
Suffering is a great grace; through suffering the soul becomes like the Savior; in suffering love becomes crystallized; the greater the suffering, the purer the love.” (#57)
God’s pure love for us is demonstrated so clearly in his son’s crucifixion. As Jesus declared, “No greater love has one than to lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13). We are called to unite our sufferings to Jesus; it is through our suffering that our love is purified.
I will not allow myself to be so absorbed in the whirlwind of work as to forget about God. I will spend all my free moments at the feet of the Master hidden in the Blessed Sacrament. (#82)
This decision that Sr. Faustina made in her life is a good one for us to make today. Over this year, beginning with a stay-at-home order and then leading to guidelines to avoid unnecessary contact with those outside our household until everyone is vaccinated has given us the opportunity to slow down and remember God. It is a good time to spend some time “at the feet of the Master.” That’s why the churches remained open – so we could spend time before the Lord present in the Blessed Sacrament. In fact, God is present everywhere and we can find him whenever we open our hearts and minds to him.
When I see that the burden is beyond my strength, I do not consider or analyze it or probe into it, but I run like a child to the Heart of Jesus and say only one word to Him: “You can do all things.” And then I keep silent, because I know that Jesus Himself will intervene in the matter, and as for me, instead of tormenting myself, I use that time to love Him. (#1033)
During this time of worldwide struggle, we can either fret and worry or we can turn to our Lord in love for, as St. Paul assures us so clearly, “all things work for the good for those who love God” (Rm 8:28).
And finally, we need to trust in God’s mercy, for God’s love is most clearly shown in his mercy and God’s mercy is perfectly demonstrated in the life and death of his son. Jesus instructed Sr. Faustina:
“I am love and mercy itself. There is no misery that could be a match for my mercy, neither will misery exhaust it, because as it is being granted – it increases. The soul that trusts in my mercy is most fortunate, because I myself take care of it.” (#1273)
On this Divine Mercy Sunday, we turn to our Lord who revealed himself to Sr. Faustina in a special way to reveal his mercy anew. Our Lord requested that the image be venerated on the Feast of Divine Mercy – the First Sunday after Easter, which we now call Divine Mercy Sunday. Jesus told St. Faustina, “I want this image, which you will paint with a brush, to be solemnly blessed on the first Sunday after Easter; that Sunday is to be the Feast of Mercy” (Diary, 49). Under the direction of St. Faustina and her confessor, Blessed Michael Sopocko, the artist Eugene Kazimirowski, of Vilnius, painted the image in 1934-35. Other artists have since painted their own versions of the image of Divine Mercy. Kazimirowski’s version (now known as the Vilnius image) is one of three versions of the image of Divine Mercy that have ecclesiastical approval. Through the generosity of our one our parishioners, we have a copy of that image.
It was in space and time – at a particular moment in history in Jerusalem – that our Lord was raised from the dead, but the effects of his Resurrection must change the hearts and minds of people in every age as we prepare to be with God for all eternity. On this Divine Mercy Sunday, let us thank God for his love and mercy, which he demonstrated so clearly through the suffering and death of his Son, and pray for God’s mercy among us and all peoples around the world, especially now as we continue our struggle in the face of the deadly COVID-19 disease. May God have mercy on us all!