Homily: Divine Mercy Sunday 2013

Given in Rome, at the Basilica of Saint Mary Major

Jesus I trust in you.  Today is Divine Mercy Sunday—just the 13th time Divine Mercy Sunday has been celebrated as a feast of the Universal Church, since its institution in 2001.

Divine Mercy is not a new concept.  The message of God’s Mercy has been preached for almost two thousand years.  It is the message of the Christian faith.  God has mercy upon sinners.  We are loved even when we are unlovable because of our sins—now matter how sinful, we are called to be forgiven by God.

Mercy is available to us from God and it is available in abundance.

Both St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas went so far to say that Mercy is God’s greatest attribute.
The same message can be found in the Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska a polish nun who unlike the great Augustine or Thomas Aquinas had little more than a grade school education.  Jesus himself appeared to St. Faustina and told her to fill her Diary with the message of His mercy.

The diary was actually banned in 1958, a ban which lasted 20 years, during which time the Church investigated the authenticity of the message.  Through the labors of a fairly well known polish Cardinal of the Church—a certain Karol Woitijia that the ban was lifted, and the message of Mercy began to spread throughout the world with great vigor.

Six months later, that Cardinal was elected Pope John Paul II.

It was on that first Divine Mercy Sunday in the year 2000, that John Paul II canonized Sister Faustina.

Our Lord Himself appeared to Saint Faustina a number of times, insisting that she make known His desire to pour out his mercy upon all people.  The Lord taught her the chaplet of Divine Mercy, a devotion which has spread all of the world. “My daughter," Jesus said to her "encourage souls to pray the chaplet I gave you…help me save souls.”  For that is what is at stake here.  The Chaplet of Divine Mercy is a powerful and effective means for us to cooperate with Jesus in the mission to save souls.
While praying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, near the end of her earthly life, Sister Faustina received a vision: she saw a man on his deathbed writhing in torment.  While he lay dying, a host of demons surrounded him waiting to take his soul to hell.  But, she continued to pray: “for the sake of His sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world”.  Soon the dying man became calm, repentance for his sins filled his heart. He was comforted by the trust in God’s mercy which came through Faustina’s praying of the Chaplet of Divine Mercy.
The chaplet of Divine Mercy is a simple but powerful prayer.  We do well to pray the chaplet, for sinners on their death beds, for those who are hardened in lives of habitual sin.
But, not only are we to pray for God’s mercy to be poured out on sinners, we must seek to put God’s mercy into practice.
We are to offer kindness and mercy and compassion to others.  Do people experience patience, calm, and mercy and kindness in your presence?
How full of mercy are we, if we are so quick to fly off the handle at the slightest inconvenience or difference in opinion?  How full of mercy are we, if we are slow or unwilling to forgive others? How full of mercy are we, if we are closed to giving our time, talent, and treasure for the good of others?

Here is the challenge to examine our hearts, today.  To be full of mercy means forgiving our past hurts, and being very quick to forgive in the face of inconveniences, even to bear little injustices patiently.
With all the hatred, war, violence, and bigotry, the world is in great need of God’s mercy.  And now, more than ever, Christians need to be those instruments of mercy, through prayer, and through concrete acts of love.
Thomas Merton said, “Mercy is the key to transforming a whole world in which sin seems to have sway.”
On Divine Mercy Sunday, two years ago in 2011, John Paul II was beatified in Rome.  He has been recognized by the Church to have lived a life of great holiness and heroic virtue and that the faithful do well to venerate him and to turn to his intercession, we may now address him in prayer as Blessed John Paul II.
Not all Popes of course are canonized or beatified. But the Church and the world were truly blessed by the compassionate and prayerful shepherding of John Paul II.  He called together millions of young people for the World Youth days.  He exercised the Petrine ministry with a tireless missionary spirit, traveling around the globe more than any other Pope in history to bring the message of Christ to us.
Through the intercession of Saint Faustina, Blessed John Paul, and the blessed virgin mar, mother of mercy, may we've free from all that keeps us from being poured out in service, in charity for others, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.