Divine Mercy Sunday

On April 30, twenty-five years ago, St. John Paul II decreed that the Second Sunday of Easter would also be known as “Sunday of Divine Mercy.” He based this initiative on the revelations of Our Lord to St. Faustina Kowalska in the 1930s. Her mystical visions gave the Church the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, a special mode of prayer. The Pope considered the visions and message a providential gift to a world in need of mercy.  We need to think only of the horrors that Nazism and Fascism posed at the time. Let us place our trust in the mercy of God, so needed in today’s war-torn world and in our own life. Divine Mercy Sunday invites those crushed by the weight of sin, who have lost confidence in life, or may be tempted to despair, to turn to the Lord who is gentle and humble of heart.  

How appropriate that this feast coincides with today’s Gospel: the appearance of the Lord to the apostles and then to the “doubting Thomas.” Therein we find the Lord who is merciful to the apostles who abandoned him. Not only do they experience the Lord’s mercy, but they are also entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation we find in the Sacrament of Penance. We should never be fearful of it but approach it with confidence.
 
Let us pray with St. Catherine of Siena:
 
I beg, you Lord…Do not put off any longer your merciful designs towards the world but descend and fulfill the desire of your servants…I know well that mercy is your own attribute, wherefore you cannot destroy it or refuse it to him who asks for it!