THE FEAST OF DIVINE MERCY

Celebrate With Us.

This year, Divine Mercy Sunday coincides with the Beatification of Pope John Paul II. All Catholics, active or inactive or alienated, are invited to attend this prayerful celebration and immerse their soul in the Unfathomable Mercy of Jesus.

On April 30th in the Great Jubilee Year 2000, Pope John Paul II declared that from now throughout the universal Church the Second Sunday of Easter will be known as Divine Mercy Sunday. He also indicated that he had fulfilled the will of Christ by this action.

What John Paul II was referring to was the numerous requests from Jesus made to St. Faustina in the 1930's. Jesus also asked that His image of Divine Mercy be venerated publicly on that day. It's the one with the red and pale rays with the words, "Jesus, I Trust In You!" that hangs above the tabernacle in our Adoration Chapel.

The main message that the Lord was revealing to the world was that He wanted to pour out His Mercy before His return. Jesus told Faustina, "Before I come as a just Judge, I first open wide the door of My mercy." (Diary, 1146) This wide-opened door is Divine Mercy Sunday. Jesus said, "On that day are open all the divine floodgates through which graces flow. Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its sins be as scarlet. I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and shelter for all souls." (Diary, 699)

The Divine Mercy Chaplet. The message of The Divine Mercy is simple.

It is that God loves us — all of us. And, he wants us to recognize that His mercy is greater than our sins, so that we will call upon Him with trust, receive His mercy, and let it flow through us to others. Thus, all will come to share His joy.

The Divine Mercy message is one we can call to mind simply by remembering ABC:

A - Ask for His Mercy. God wants us to approach Him in prayer constantly, repenting of our sins and asking Him to pour His mercy out upon us and upon the whole world.

B - Be merciful. God wants us to receive His mercy and let it flow through us to others. He wants us to extend love and forgiveness to others just as He does to us.

C - Completely trust in Jesus. God wants us to know that the graces of His mercy are dependent upon our trust. The more we trust in Jesus, the more we will receive.

This message and devotion to Jesus as The Divine Mercy is based on the writings of Saint Faustina Kowalska, an uneducated Polish nun who, in obedience to her spiritual director, wrote a diary of about 600 pages recording the revelations she received about God's mercy. Even before her death in 1938, the devotion to The Divine Mercy had begun to spread.