The Feast of Mercy (Divine Mercy Sunday)
Among all of the elements of devotion to
The Divine Mercy requested by our Lord through Sr. Faustina, the Feast of
Mercy holds first place. The Lord's will with regard to its establishment
was already made known in His first revelation to the saint. In all, there
were 14 revelations concerning the desired feast.
Once after
insisting, "Do all you possibly can for this
work of mercy,"
Jesus added: "My Heart
rejoices on account of this feast." Sister
Faustina concluded:
"After these words, I understood that nothing can
dispense me from the obligation which the Lord demands of me"
(Diary, 998).
Our Lord's explicit desire is that this
feast be celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter. He joins the feast
to the designated Sunday in eight revelations:
Diary,
49, 88, 280, 299, 341, 570, 699, and 742.
He also implies a connection between the feast and that Sunday on some
other occasions recorded in the saint's
Diary
(see
Diary,
420, 89).
The "First Sunday
after
Easter" ‑ which is designated in "The
Liturgy of the Hours and the Celebration of the Eucharist" as the "Octave
Day of Easter" ‑ was officially called the
Second Sunday of Easter
after the liturgical reform of Vatican II.
Now, by the Decree of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the
Discipline of the Sacraments, the name of this liturgical day has been
changed to: "Second Sunday of
Easter, or of Divine Mercy."
Pope John Paul II made the surprise
announcement of this change in his homily at the canonization of Sr.
Faustina on April 30, 2000. There, he declared:
"It is important then that we accept the whole message that comes to us
from the word of God on this Second Sunday of Easter, which from now on
throughout the Church, will be called 'Divine Mercy Sunday.' "
By the words "the whole message," the Holy
Father was referring to the strict connection between the "Easter Mystery
of the Redemption" ‑ the suffering, death, burial, resurrection, and
ascension of Christ, followed by the sending of the Holy Spirit ‑ and this
Feast of Divine Mercy, the Octave Day of Easter.
In this regard, the Holy Father also said,
citing the Responsorial Psalm of the Liturgy,
"The Church sings ... , as
if receiving from Christ's lips these words of the Psalm" [that is,
Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His steadfast love (=mercy)
endures forever,
Ps 118:1].
And then, the Holy Father developed the connection further:
"[This comes] from the lips of the risen Christ, who bears the great
message of Divine Mercy and entrusts its ministry to the Apostles in the
Upper Room:
'Peace be with
you. As the Father has sent Me, even so I send you. ... Receive the Holy
Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain
the sins of any, they are retained' " (Jn
20:21‑23).
By what the Holy
Father continued to say, it becomes clear why Jesus insisted that the
sacred image of Himself as The Divine Mercy is to be venerated throughout
the world in connection with the observance of this Sunday
(see
Diary,
49, 88, 299, 341, 570, 742). The Holy
Father said:
"Before speaking these words, Jesus shows His hands and His side. He
points, that is, to the wounds of the Passion, especially the wound in His
Heart, the source from which flows the great wave of mercy poured out on
humanity.
"From that Heart,
Sr. Faustina Kowalska, the blessed whom from now on we will call a saint,
will see two rays of light shining from that Heart and illuminating the
world: 'The two rays,'
Jesus Himself explained to her one day,
'represent blood and water'
(Diary,
299).
"Blood and water! We immediately think of the testimony
given by the Evangelist John, who, when a soldier on Calvary pierced
Christ's side with his spear, sees blood and water flowing from it (cf. Jn
19:34). Moreover, if the blood recalls the sacrifice of the Cross and the
gift of the Eucharist, the water, in Johannine symbolism, represents not
only Baptism but also the gift of the Holy Spirit (cf. Jn 3:5; 4:14;
7:37‑39).
"Divine Mercy reaches human beings through
the Heart of Christ crucified: 'Tell, My
daughter,
[all people] that I am
Love and Mercy itself [personified]'
Jesus will ask of Sr. Faustina
(Diary,
1074). Christ pours out this mercy on
humanity through the sending of the Spirit who, in the Trinity, is the
Person‑Love. And is not mercy love's 'second name' (cf.
Rich in Mercy,
n.7), understood in its deepest and most
tender aspect, in its ability to take upon itself the burden of any need
and, especially, in its most immense capacity for forgiveness?"
From this teaching of the Holy Father on
that most solemn occasion of his "presenting the life and witness of Sr.
Faustina Kowalska. to the whole Church as a gift of God to our time," it
can be deduced that the most opportune time, the most proper one, for the
solemn honoring of The Divine Mercy falls immediately after the Paschal
Feast of Easter, recalling the attaining of our Redemption.
St. Augustine called the eight days of
Easter (which the Church liturgically considers as constituting a
single day ‑ the day of the new creation) "days of mercy and pardon."
He calls the Sunday of this Paschal Octave (which our Lord insisted with
St. Faustina is the Feast of Mercy [Diary, 88]) "the summary of the
days of mercy" (Sermon 156, Dom. In Albis). It is no wonder, then,
that already during his pilgrimage to Blessed Faustina's tomb on June 7,
1997, Pope John Paul 11 declared: "I give thanks to Divine Providence that
I have been enabled to contribute personally to the fulfillment of
Christ's will through the institution of the Feast of Divine Mercy."
Novena
In fact, Jesus Himself dictated the
intentions for each day of the novena which starts on Good Friday and He desired to be celebrated as
a preparation for the solemn observance of this feast.
Veneration of the Image
The image of Jesus, The Divine Mercy, is
to have a special place of honor on the Feast of Mercy, a visual reminder
of all that Jesus did for us through His Passion, Death, and Resurrection
... and a reminder, too, of what He asks of us in return ‑ to trust Him
and be merciful to others:
"I want the image to be solemnly blessed on
the first Sunday after Easter, and I want it to be venerated publicly so
that every soul may know about it"
(341).
A Special Promise of Mercy
Our Lord's promise to grant complete forgiveness of sins and punishment on
the Feast of Mercy is recorded three times in the Diary of Saint Faustina,
each time in a slightly different way:
"I want to grant a complete pardon to the
souls that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion on the Feast
of My mercy"
(1109).
"Whoever approaches the Fountain of Life on this day
will be granted complete forgiveness of sins and punishment"
(300).
"The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy
Communion will obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment"
(699).
Extraordinary
Graces
Our Lord is emphasizing, through this
promise, the infinite value of Confession and Communion as miracles of
mercy. He wants us to realize that since the Eucharist is His own Body,
Blood, Soul, and Divinity, it is the "Fountain of Life" (300). The
Eucharist is Jesus, Himself, the Living God, longing to pour Himself as
Mercy into our hearts.
Why would Our Lord feel the need to
emphasize this? Because so many people do not really understand it. They
either see no need to receive Holy Communion, or they receive it simply
out of habit. As St. Paul explains in his letter to the Corinthians, they
eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord unworthily, "without
recognizing the body of the Lord" (I Cor 11:27‑29).
In His revelations to Saint Faustina Our
Lord makes it very clear what He is offering us in Holy Communion and how
much it hurts Him when we treat His presence with indifference:
"My great delight is
to unite Myself with souls ... When I come to a human heart in Holy
Communion, My hands are full of all kinds of graces which I want to give
to the soul. But souls do not even pay any attention to Me; they leave Me
to Myself and busy themselves with other things. Oh, how sad I am that
souls do not recognize Love! They treat Me as a dead object"
(1385) ...
"It pains Me very
much when religious souls receive the Sacrament of Love merely out of
habit, as if they did not distinguish this food. I rind neither faith nor
love in their hearts. I go to such souls with great reluctance. It would
be better if they did not receive Me" (1288) ...
"How painful it is to
Me that souls so seldom unite themselves to Me in Holy Communion. I wait
for souls, and they are indifferent toward Me. I want to lavish My graces
on them, and they do not want to accept them. They treat me as a dead
object, whereas My Heart is full of love and mercy. In order that you may
know at least some of My pain imagine the most tender of mothers who has
great love for her children, while those children spurn her love. Consider
her pain. No one is in a position to console her. This is but a feeble
image and likeness of My love"
(1447).
So, Our Lord's promise of complete
forgiveness is both a reminder and a call. It is a reminder that He is
truly present and truly alive in the Eucharist, filled with
love for us and waiting for us to turn to Him with trust. And it is a call
for us all to be washed clean in His Love through Confession and Holy
Communion ‑ no matter how terrible our sins ‑ and begin our lives again.
He is offering us a new start.
Prepare Yourself
Properly
Going to Confession is not the only way we
should prepare ourselves for Divine Mercy Sunday. As Cardinal Francis
Macharski, Archbishop of Krakow, Poland explains in a 1985 pastoral
letter, we are not simply called to ask for God's mercy with trust. We are
also called to be merciful:
"Our own merciful attitude is likewise a
preparation. Without deeds of mercy our devotion would not be real. For
Christ does not only reveal the mercy of God, but at the same time He
places before people the demand that they conduct themselves in life with
love and mercy. The Holy Father states that this requirement constitutes
the very heart of the Gospel
ethos
(Rich in Mercy, 3) ‑
it
is the
commandment of love and the promise: "Blessed are the merciful, for they
shall obtain mercy' (Mt 5:7). Let it be a mercy that is forgiving and
true, and universal, with good words, deeds, and prayer for others!"
Our Lord's words to Saint Faustina about
this requirement to be merciful are very strong and leave no room for
misinterpretation:
"Yes, the first
Sunday after Easter is the Feast of Mercy, but there must also be acts of
mercy ... I demand from you deeds of mercy, which are to arise out of love
for Me. You are to show mercy to your neighbors always and everywhere. You
must not shrink from this or try to excuse or absolve yourself from it"
(742).
Thus, to fittingly observe the Feast of
Mercy, we should:
1. Celebrate the Feast on the
Sunday after Easter;
2. Sincerely repent of all our
sins;
3. Place our complete trust in
Jesus;
4. Go to Confession, preferably
before that Sunday;
5. Receive Holy Communion on the
day of the Feast;
6. Venerate* the Image of The
Divine Mercy;
7. Be merciful to others,
through our actions, words, and prayers on their behalf.
*To venerate a sacred image or statue
simply means to perform some act or make some gesture of deep religious
respect toward it because of the person whom it represents ‑ in this case,
our Most Merciful Savior.
Diary,
Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, Divine Mercy in My
Soul (c) 1987 Congregation of Marians of the
Immaculate Conception, Stockbridge, MA 01263. All
Rights Reserved. Used with permission. |
