Since the Catholic Chronicle is published only monthly, today’s edition looks forward to Easter even though we are still in the midst of Lent. There is something for our reflection that straddles Lent and Easter very well, and that is the Feast of Divine Mercy.
 

Since the millennium year 2000, the second Sunday of Easter (which this year falls on April 23) is also known as “Divine Mercy Sunday.” It was so designated “as a perennial invitation to Christians to face, with confidence in divine benevolence, the difficulties and trials that humankind will experience in the years to come” (Holy See, Congregation for Divine Worship).
 
The origin of this devotion to divine mercy is to be found in the private revelations made to St. Faustina Kowalska, who was canonized during the millennium year. However, even in the ancient church the octave day of Easter had been called “the compendium of the days of mercy.”
 
Sister Mary Faustina was born in Poland in 1905. In 1934, at the wish of her spiritual director, she began keeping a personal diary, which she titled “Divine Mercy in my Soul.” It contained a detailed account of profound revelations and extraordinary spiritual experiences. It discloses how the Risen Christ chose to entrust her with a very special mission, namely that she should announce to the world what can be described as a “gospel of mercy.”
 
Sr. Faustina became an example of how to declare and practice the mystery of divine mercy in daily life through good deeds, and of how to appeal to God’s mercy through prayer. Sr. Faustina died of tuberculosis at the age of 33 in 1938 on the eve of World War II, the coming and horrors of which she had intimated to others in the convent.
What is the essence of devotion to divine mercy?
 
The starting point is faith understood as complete and total trust and confidence in Jesus. In a famous painting of Christ made at Sr. Faustina’s direction on the basis of her visions, the inscription under the image of Christ reads: “Jesus I trust in you.” Jesus once told her that “the graces of my mercy are drawn by means of one vessel only, and that is trust.”
 
A second element is the obligation to practice acts of mercy toward others every day. In the words of Christ: “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. If a soul does not exercise mercy somehow or other, it will not obtain my mercy on the day of judgment.”
 
Finally there is prayer. This is the impetus for the “Feast of Mercy” that is observed on the Sunday after Easter. Through sacramental confession, reception of Holy Communion and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, Jesus promised “to pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the fount of mercy.” Jesus also commended prayers for mercy at 3:00 p.m., the hour of the day when Scripture tells us he died on the cross.
 
If ever there was an age that needed mercy, surely it is ours: mercy among people toward one another, as well as the mercy of God for so much evil, indifference and disobedience to his love and law. Someone has said that in the United States today “everything is permitted, and nothing is forgiven.” When we consider the state of the world (terrorism and hate-filled conflict in the Middle East), our country (“culture wars,” polarization, incivility, “winning” by any means), the Church (sinful scandals and unrelenting attacks), not to mention our own lives, trust in God can be severely tested.  How will all this end? Where is our merciful God in the midst of ordeals?
 
Recalling the death of Pope John Paul the Great a year ago on April 2, Pope Benedict recently read a portion of a manuscript that was to have been Pope John Paul’s message for the feast of Divine Mercy, which fell last year on April 3, the day after the Polish Pope died. In his hand-written message, which Pope Benedict described as “like a last will and testament,” Pope John Paul had written: “To humanity, which at times seems to be lost and dominated by the power of evil, selfishness, and fear, the risen Lord offers the gift of his love that pardons, reconciles and opens the soul to hope. It is love that converts hearts and brings peace ... How much the world needs to understand and accept Divine Mercy!”
 
The whole meaning of the Paschal Mystery of Christ’s dying and rising is to show us that God’s mercy and power are at work even in the midst of darkness and the most terrible suffering. Instead of unleashing judgment and vengeance on the world for what our sins have wrought, God the Father has poured out mercy through the wounded and risen flesh of his Son.
 
In the Gospel at Mass on Divine Mercy Sunday the Risen Christ says to the apostles: “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” The text continues: “And when he had said this he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.’” The Church has been entrusted with the grace of reconciliation, a ministry of divine mercy chiefly through the sacrament of penance, but not only that. Mercy is poured out in all of the Church’s sacramental life, and is meant to be a way of life for all of us as disciples of Jesus.

One of the great teachings (by word and example) that we receive from the saints is this: that we need to have an attitude of loving trust in the Risen Christ and complete surrender to his will and his plan of mercy for the world (cf. Rom. 11:32). As I mentioned earlier, “Jesus I trust in you” is the prayer inscribed at the foot of the Divine Mercy image revealed to St. Faustina. Because of Good Friday and Easter Sunday, inseparably joined, we have every reason to say; “Jesus I trust in you.” This must always be our prayer.

I also invite you to join me in praying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy revealed to St. Faustina, to be recited on ordinary rosary beads.

Begin with an Our Father, Hail Mary and the Apostles Creed.
On the Our Father beads say the following words:
 
“Eternal Father, I offer you the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your dearly beloved Son,   our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.”

On the Hail Mary beads say the following words:
 
“For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.”

At the end, say these words three times:
   
“Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us and on the whole world.”
 
May the eternal “Father of Mercies” bless us with a holy Lent and a happy Easter.