On the Second Sunday of Easter of the Jubilee Year 2000, at the Mass for the canonization of St. Faustina Kowalska, Pope John Paul II proclaimed to the world that “from now on throughout the Church this Sunday will be called Divine Mercy Sunday.” Pope Benedict and Pope Francis have carried on the tradition of having the Lord’s mercy as an important message in their pontificates. We probably all remember that back in November of last year, we concluded the Jubilee Year of Mercy that Pope Francis had proclaimed. At the vespers for Divine Mercy Sunday in 2015, Pope Francis explained that he was declaring this jubilee year because it was the time for mercy: “a favorable time to heal wounds, a time not to be weary of meeting all those who are waiting to see and to touch with their hands the signs of the closeness of God, a time to offer everyone the way of forgiveness and reconciliation.”
As a priest, it is always engrained in my very being that the Sunday after Easter weekend, we gear up to celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday. But where did the idea for Divine Mercy Sunday originate? Was it something that Pope John Paul came up with himself? Those are good questions, aren’t they? Sister Faustina Kowalska, a religious sister with the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy had visions, starting in 1931 of Jesus appearing to her as the image of Divine Mercy, wearing a white garment with red and pale rays emanating from his heart. Pope John Paul II later explained the context of Jesus as Divine Mercy in the world in the 1930s. This was a time when most of the industrialized countries of the world was suffering from the Great Depression, a time of great poverty and misery for so many people. It was a time when many people were turning their backs on Christianity and turning to the ideologies of evil, nazism and communism. Pope John Paul II saw Sister Faustina as being the herald of the mercy of Christ, the one message capable of off-setting the evil of those others ideologies. In establishing Divine Mercy Sunday throughout the Catholic faith on the Sunday right after Easter, Pope John Paul II felt that he was putting into place in our universal Church a very meaningful Catholic devotion that started in his native country of Poland.
In the visions Sister Faustina had of Jesus as Divine Mercy, she records in her diary 14 different occasions when Jesus requested that a feast of Divine Mercy be observed in the Church. On one such occasion, Jesus told her, “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, 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.”
This quote by Pope Benedict explains what the message of Divine Mercy Sunday is all about: “Mercy is the central nucleus of the Gospel message; it is the very name of God, the Face with which he revealed himself in the Old Covenant and fully in Jesus Christ, the incarnation of creative and redemptive Love. May this merciful love also shine on the face of the Church and show itself through the sacraments, in particular (in the Sacrament) of Reconciliation, and in works of charity, both communitarian and individual. May all that the Church says and does manifest the mercy God feels for man.”
In a world when we often want justice in the form of punishment, retribution, and revenge, wanting even more than “an eye for an eye,” this message of mercy that the Church brings to the world may be laughed at and mocked, seeming strange and foreign. I came across an article on the internet from Minneapolis, Minnesota about a mother whose 20-year-old son got in an argument at a party and was shot and killed by a 16 year-old gang member who was heavily addicted to drugs. The mother, Mary Johnson, wanted justice for her son, which meant that she wanted this young man locked up for his entire life for killing her son. At the time, she said that she felt all of these things: “Shock. Disbelief. Hatred. Anger. Hatred. Blame. Hatred.” She stated: “I wanted him to be caged up like the animal he was.” The young man was sentenced to 25 1/2 years for his crime. However, Mary, a devout Christian, started to attend a support group that reached out to mothers whose children had been killed. She realized that she needed to forgive, so she asked if she could visit in prison this young man who had killed her son. Released from prison after serving 17 years, this young man needed a place to stay, so Mary Johnson found him a vacant apartment in the same apartment building where she lives, where they live side-by-side. The young man who committed the crime, Oshea Israel, says that he wants to pay back the mercy Mary has shown him by contributing back to society. Besides working at a recycling plant during the day and taking college classes at night, he visits prisons and churches to talk about forgiveness and reconciliation, with Mary Johnson often joining him as they tell their story together.
God’s mercy that we celebrate today on Divine Mercy Sunday is truly a gift to humanity. His mercy calls us out of our fear and complacency and selfishness. His mercy calls us to pardon and reconcile. His mercy calls us to love and peace.
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