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.”
Sister Faustina was a young, uneducated nun in a convent of the Congregation of Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in Poland. She came from a poor family that struggled during the years after WWI. She had only three years of formal education, so hers were the humblest tasks in the convent, usually working in the kitchen and the garden. Yet, Sister Faustina received extraordinary revelations from Jesus between 1931 and 1938. Jesus asked her to record these experiences in her notebook. The image of Divine Mercy that we have comes from these revelations. However, the concept of Jesus’ divine mercy can also be found in the spirituality of other saints, especially St Ambrose, St Catherine of Siena, and St Therese of Lisieux.
We see Christ’s divine mercy at work in today’s Gospel, as Christ appears to the disciples as they are hiding in a locked room after his death and resurrection. I think of in this Jubilee Year, Cathedrals and Churches designate specific doors where pilgrims enter, symbolizing Jesus and the way to salvation and redemption, symbolizing Jesus as the door to which we enter our faith. However, we all have places in our hearts and in our lives where we lock the doors, whether they be bad memories we have, sinful habits or addictions we cannot leave behind, or vulnerable parts of our lives we are afraid to share. As we celebrate the mercy of God in a special way today on this second Sunday of the Easter season, we are reminded that the risen Christ does not wait for the doors to be unlocked in order to enter our lives. Rather, our of his love and mercy for us, he enters our locked rooms and transforms our fears into inner peace, just as he did with Thomas and the other disciples in today’s Gospel. We are called to invite the risen Jesus into the locked places in our hearts and allow his Divine Mercy to bring Easter peace to our deepest fears.
In addition to the Divine Mercy being a strong devotion in our Catholic faith, the Sacred Heart of Jesus is one of the oldest devotions in the Church. Just as we celebrate Divine Mercy today on the second Sunday of Easter each year, we honor the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the first Friday of each month in a special way. I see the devotions to Christ’s Sacred Heart and his Divine Mercy as being inseparable. Jesus’ Sacred Heart overflows with merciful love for us. We are to overflow with merciful love to others as well. In the 14th century, St Catherine of Siena states that God’s love always crosses a bridge of mercy to reach us. We actually celebrate the feast day of St Catherine of Siena this upcoming Tuesday.
The disciples in the Early Church brought Christ’s mercy to the people in acts of healing in our first reading today in the Acts of the Apostles. People believed in their power to heal in Christ’s name, bringing many of the sick to them, with all of them being cured. They even believed that if Peter’s shadow fell on them, they would be healed.
Pope John Paul II first declared Divine Mercy Sunday, but Pope Francis will be remembered in for his constant emphasis on God’s mercy, for the way he reached out to those who needed that mercy, and the importance of fraternity in a divided world. At the funeral Mass, Italian Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re stated that “Pope Francis always placed the Gospel of mercy at the center, repeatedly emphasizing that God never tires of forgiving us.” Pope Francis called mercy “the air we breathe,” meaning that that God’s mercy is what we need most. Without God’s mercy, it would be impossible for us to live, it would be impossible for us to be disciples of Christ.
You probably remember that in September of last year, a young girl in Rankin county was convicted of killing her mother and shooting her stepfather. She just turned 16 years old last week. Since September, she has been incarcerated over at CMCF where we do prison ministry. A family friend who is Catholic had asked us to visit her and reach out to her, but the prison officials denied us access. For the last few months, however, she has been attending the gardening classes that we have been leading. In fact, she asked one of our Catholic inmates if she could get a strawberry plant, which we brought out to her this weekend. The warden of the youth facility asked us to help the youth with the gardening classes, knowing that it would help them. Everyone deserves God’s love and mercy. Everyone should have a chance at God’s love and forgiveness. That is what we are called to recognize on Divine Mercy Sunday. That is one of the beautiful messages that Pope Francis brought to the world.
That is the point that a lot of people miss. Mercy is something we can bring to people in the everyday moments of life. That is why the message I have been trying to convey to the youth this year is that going on a service trip for a week is a great experience that will impact your life and your faith, but equally important are the works of mercy that we perform on a regular basis as a community of faith and everyday ways that we reach out to people who need our help in our local community. God’s mercy is often most embodied in those simple everyday acts such as teaching someone to garden or doing the yard work for the Carmelite nuns, or in a phone call to someone who is sick or lonely, or in the cup of coffee or snack that is offered to the prisoner. Or in a hug, telling the person that you love them and that God’s loves them. Or not giving up on a young girl who has committed a horrible crime and bringing her the strawberry plant that she asks for.
Blessings to all of you as we celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday today.
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