BISHOP KEVIN J. SWEENEY
During the course of Jesus’ revelations to St. Faustina on the Divine Mercy, he asked on numerous occasions that a feast day be dedicated to the Divine Mercy and that this feast be celebrated on the Sunday after Easter. The liturgical texts of that day, the Second Sunday of Easter, concern the institution of the Sacrament of Penance, the Tribunal of the Divine Mercy, and are thus already suited to the request of Our Lord. This Feast, which had already been granted to the nation of Poland and been celebrated within Vatican City, was granted to the Universal Church by Pope John Paul II on the occasion of the canonization of Sister Faustina on April 30, 2000. In a decree dated May 23, 2000, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments stated “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 mankind will experience in the years to come.” These papal acts represent the highest endorsement that the Church can give to a private revelation, an act of papal infallibility proclaiming the certain sanctity of the mystic, and the granting of a universal feast, as requested by Our Lord to St. Faustina.
Feast of Divine Mercy
I share the above lengthy quote from the website of EWTN because I find it to be an excellent summary of something that St. Pope John Paul II did 22 years ago, but it may be something that we are only beginning to appreciate in the life of the Church. St. Pope John Paul II saw the Feast of Divine Mercy is essential to our understanding that the font of mercy is the heart of our crucified and risen Lord. In his homily on Divine Mercy last year, our Holy Father, Pope Francis, encouraged us to remember the power of mercy: “Having received mercy, let us now become merciful.” The Easter season is a privileged time for all of us to walk the path of mercy together as a people of faith.
Just three years after establishing the “Feast of Divine Mercy” to the universal Church, Pope John Paul II passed away on Saturday, April 2, 2005. Easter was early in 2005 (it fell on March 27), so Pope John Paul II died on the vigil of the Feast of Divine Mercy. When we reflect on the lives of these two saints who were both born and raised in Poland, we can see the way in which God works through the lives of “ordinary” women and men. They were born 15 years apart; St. Faustina was born on Aug. 25, 1905 and named Helen Kowalska. Pope John Paul II was born, Karol Wojtyla, on May 18, 1920. While Pope John Paul lived a long life of almost 85 years, Sister Faustina died at the young age of 33 on Oct. 5, 1938, after having entered the convent of the Sisters of Mercy in Warsaw at the age of 20. The stories of these two individual lives are rich additions to the “lives of the saints.” To reflect on the ways in which the revelations given to this “obscure nun” had an impact on the teaching and pontificate of St. Pope John Paul II, is an opportunity to reflect on the ways in which God continues to invite the Church and all people to know His Love and Mercy.
The clearest insight into the impact of the message of Divine Mercy on St. Pope John Paul II is found by using his own words. Both in his teaching and personal life, St. Pope John Paul II strove to live and teach the message of Divine Mercy. As the great Mercy Pope, he wrote an encyclical on Divine Mercy, (Dives in Misericordia, On the Mercy of God). In a 1997 visit to the Shrine of Divine Mercy in Poland, John Paul II revealed his profound attachment to the gift of Divine Mercy: “The message of Divine Mercy has always been near and dear to me. It is as if history had inscribed it in the tragic experience of the Second World War. In those difficult years it was a particular support and an inexhaustible source of hope, not only for the people of Krakow but for the entire nation. This was also my personal experience, which I took with me to the See of Peter and which it in a sense forms the image of this Pontificate.” Sister Faustina was canonized by St. Pope John Paul II with the hope that through the intercession of Sister Faustina, she would obtain for the Church: “ … an awareness of the depth of divine mercy; help us to have a living experience of it and to bear witness to it among our brothers and sisters” (Homily of Canonization, April 30, 2000). The insight of a Pope tempered by war on the centrality of mercy appears prescient as war rages again in Europe and the works of mercy are present in the generosity of many caring for refugees and the displaced and missing in the prosecutors of war.
As his own words indicate, St. Pope John Paul II was very much impacted in his own life and in his pontificate by the horrors of World War II and the holocaust; by the history and suffering of the Polish people and nation; by the horrors of atheistic communism and fascist, totalitarian regimes, as well as by (what he identified as) the “Culture of Death,” which threatens the dignity and value of all human life. It seems that St. Pope John Paul II knew that the Church and the world would need this feast day to help us to trust in the mercy of a loving God. When we reflect on all that has taken place in the 20 years since he “gave” this Feast Day to the universal Church, as well as what is happening in our world today, we can see why the Congregation for Divine Worship (as quoted above) would say that the Feast of Divine Mercy is, “… a perennial invitation to the Christian world to face with confidence in divine benevolence, the difficulties and trials that mankind will experience in the years to come.”
If you are not aware of the life and writings of St. Faustina, I would encourage you to learn more. A great place to begin is the website of the Marian Fathers.
There you can learn about “The Divine Mercy Message and Devotion” as well as the amazing story of the Divine Mercy Devotion being brought to the United States from Poland by Father Joseph Jarzebowski, MIC.
Many parishes throughout our Diocese have a devotion to Divine Mercy and celebrations for the Feast Day, especially in our Polish-speaking parishes and thanks to many of our Polish-born priests. There is also a strong devotion to Divine Mercy among many of our Spanish-speaking priests and communities. Personally, I was introduced to Sister Faustina and Divine Mercy, by my Mom, who was especially devoted, like many, to the “Divine Mercy Chaplet”. For (at least) the last 20 years of her life, my Mom tried to pray the Chaplet every day at 3 p.m., the “hour of Mercy.” As one of the prayers in the chaplet says, “For the sake of His sorrowful passion, may God have mercy on us and on the whole world.” As we conclude with the prayer of the Chaplet, we pray that we take to heart the words of Pope Francis: “ … let us be renewed by the peace, forgiveness, and wounds of the merciful Jesus. Let us ask for the grace to become witnesses of mercy. Only in this way will our faith be alive and our lives unified. Only in this way will we proclaim the Gospel of God, which is the Gospel of mercy.” Amen.