Divine Mercy Sunday 2026 - Unfathomable mercy

 

On the Sunday after Easter in the year 2000, Pope Saint John Paul II surprised the world, and even many of his cardinals, by declaring that the second Sunday of the Easter season is to be known as Divine Mercy Sunday.

Though the title for this Sunday is relatively new, the message of God's merciful love is certainly not a new concept.  It's the central message of the Christian faith preached for 2000 years.  God has mercy upon sinners; we are loved by God even when we are unlovable because of our sins—no matter how sinful, God's forgiveness is available to all who turn to Him.

The celebration of Divine Mercy is a fitting conclusion to the octave of Easter.  On Easter Sunday we celebrated the triumph of God's love over the powers of sin and death.  Jesus' resurrection shows that Sin and death do not get the last word.  God did not counter our sin with fiery wrath from heaven.  Rather, God defeated man’s sin in a totally unimaginable and unexpected way, Mercy.

Think about it.  On Mount Calvary, we violently rejected God in the flesh.  Everytime we sin, we reject God, but the crucifixion, in a sense, is man's ultimate rejection of God.  At that moment, more than any in human history, God would have been justified in simply ending this whole thing project, condemning us as too sick, too depraved, so corrupt we’d rather kill God than admit our errors. 

Yet from the cross Jesus pronounces not wrath, but forgiveness—not an end to mankind, but an end to the reign of sin and death. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”. And from his side flowed blood and water flowed as rays of divine mercy made available to all people in the Sacraments of the Church. 

The Gospel reading for this Divine Mercy Sunday echoes the message of mercy. Entering the upper room, in the midst of his disciples—he shows them, his wounds, and in doing so he wasn’t pointing them out as if to shame his disciples, or to announce his vengeance. “Look what you did, now it’s time for you to pay”. Rather, he points to his wounds, and says, “peace”. 

Today is a day for the Church to celebrate God’s mercy and to commit to making that message known.

Back in the year 2000, when Pope St. John Paul instituted today as the feast of mercy, he did so in the context of the canonization of a saint—a little known polish nun at the time named Saint Faustina Kowalska. 

In the 1930’s Sister Maria Faustina Kowalska, received a series of private revelations from the Lord himself about his desire to make known to the world his mercy.

Listen to the words of Jesus recorded by Sister Faustina:

“My daughter, tell the whole world about My inconceivable mercy. I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and a shelter for all souls, and especially for poor sinners. On that day the very depths of My tender mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the fount of My mercy. The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion shall obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment. On that day are opened all the divine floodgates through which graces flow. Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its sins be as scarlet. My mercy is so great that no mind, be it of man or of angel, will be able to fathom it throughout all eternity. Everything that exists has come from the very depths of My most tender mercy. Every soul in its relation to Me will contemplate My love and mercy throughout eternity. The Feast of Mercy emerged from My very depths of tenderness. It is My desire that it be solemnly celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter. Mankind will not have peace until it turns to the Fount of My mercy.”

The Lord Jesus could have appeared at any moment in history, but he chose the 1930s. The 1930s began an era of cruelty and godlessness. It saw the rise of totalitarian atheistic governments and rampant materialism and the trampling of basic human freedoms like the right to life. Merciless governments, merciless war crimes, merciless genocides in Europe and Africa, merciless wars over the resources of the earth, merciless religious persecutions, merciless killing of babies, merciless pursuit of wealth at the expense of human life. And Jesus shows up, and tells Sr. Faustina, make my mercy known.

It is unfathomable, that in the face of evil, Jesus wants us to announce His mercy. Most of us would be quick to condemn the world for all of these grave sins, but Jesus says that our task to announce his mercy. “Mankind will not have peace until it turns to the Fount of My Mercy.”  

Though, of course, the Church must speak the truth about sin. We must never grow tired of announcing mercy. To whom? To everyone. To fallen away Catholics, “you are welcome back”. To those ashamed by their sins: “don’t be afraid of confession, Jesus is waiting for you there.” To filled with anger and hatred: “you will find peace in forgiveness”. To those who think their sins are too big for God to forgive: “God’s mercy is boundless”. To those trapped in patterns of sin, resentment, impurity, addiction, or indifference: Jesus Christ is not done with you: “Trust in Jesus, and you will find freedom, peace, joy, and meaning”. 

There are souls who feel that it is pointless to change their ways because they think are too far gone, they are too entrenched in sin to change: God’s mercy can save you. Allow yourself to be saved. Whatever your sins might be, they can be forgiven, whatever the direction of your life, it can be changed. 

Brothers and sisters, the world is starving for mercy, even when it does not know how to name what it is seeking. Beneath so much anger, confusion, and violence are wounded human hearts—estranged from God—locked in fear. And so the Church, like her risen Lord entering the locked room, must enter those locked rooms say again and again: God’s Peace be with you. No door is truly locked to Jesus. And the message of mercy can reach the most hardened hearts when we have the courage to share it.

Today, on Divine Mercy Sunday, we thank God for his infinite mercy for each of us and for all—pro omnibus et singulis. But we also pray for the grace to be ambassadors of mercy—for as the Lord has proclaimed peace, so must we—to lead souls to the font of mercy: Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, whose mercy endures forever, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

Divine Mercy Sunday 2020 - The Risen Christ and the Locked Room

Two years ago, on Divine Mercy Sunday, from St. Peter’s square, Pope Francis reflected upon today’s Gospel: of the Lord Jesus, after his resurrection, entering into the locked room, where the apostles had barricaded themselves from the world and from their fears. Little did the holy father know, that two years later, the vast numbers of the Catholic faithful, would, too be barricaded behind locked doors because of the Corona Virus.

The Apostles barricaded themselves, why? well, out of fear.  They feared the repercussions of their association with Jesus of Nazareth. Rumors had already begun to spread throughout Jerusalem that the apostles had stolen the body of Jesus claiming that he had risen from the dead. The apostles feared that they now would be arrested, and beaten, and tortured, and killed like their master, by those who conspired against Him. After all, in this very room, on Holy Thursday, Jesus had told them, that where the Master goes, so must the disciple.

Perhaps they also locked themselves in the upper room out of shame. Only one of the Apostles, St. John, had followed the Lord all the way to the cross. Peter, had even denied that he knew Jesus. Their shame became a locked room, a prison, their shame over their failure to believe and follow. The way out of their prison, out of their immobility, paralysis, and confusion, was not clear, as they failed to grasp the implications of Jesus’ Resurrection.

Now, our locked doors over this last month of quarantine are a little different. Our doors were locked out of safety and concern for our health and our neighbors, in compliance with government policy and the guidance of our religious leaders. And from talking with parishioners over the phone these last few weeks, most of us are quite ready to throw open those doors once again.

And, for many Christians, for believers, these locked doors have not been much of an obstacle to the Peace of Christ. I’ve heard wonderful stories how Christian families have been reading from Scripture together, praying together more than they ever have before. Christians have been phoning, and video conferencing family, and neighbors, and friends, baking and cooking and shopping for each other, sewing quarantine masks. Even the internet has become a way out of the locked room, or rather, an entry point for the Lord, when we’ve watched mass. We’ve learned once again the power of making spiritual communion with Jesus in the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar even when we could not be physically present there. Our desire for Him, our longing for Him expressed in prayer has been a gateway out of our locked rooms into the dwelling place of God in heaven.

Like the Christians of the early Church in our first reading, have learned new ways and rediscovered old ways to be devoted to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers by studying our faith, and reaching out in charity to members of our community, and coming together for the breaking of the bread, albeit, through computer and television screens.

And we’ve grown in solidarity with many Christians around the world, like our brothers and sisters in the diocesan missions in El Salvador who do not have access to churches, to weekly mass, and yet they continue to study the word of god, and pass on the faith to the young, and spread the Gospel through their good works and preaching.

Perhaps, these weeks of quarantine have also helped us to have a deeper understanding of what Vatican II called the “domestic church” the Church of the home. The prayer, and devotion, study, good works, and forgiveness so essential to the spreading the Gospel out in the world, must first begin at home.

Maybe we’ve come to discover that a locked door is not necessarily a bad thing, truly coming to appreciate the Lord’s teaching on the first day of Lent, on Ash Wednesday, He instructs his disciples to go to their inner room, and shut the door, and pray in secret.

A locked room can be a place where the peace of Christ is experienced profoundly. Why? Because the Lord Jesus, as we heard in the Gospel today, is not hindered by locked doors. The Risen Christ appeared and stood in their midst, and announced “Peace be with you” and he does for us as well. 
Now, there are many in the world, who lock the doors of their minds and hearts to Jesus. Their pride, their egos are so swollen, their sins or addictions or ignorance are so great, you meet them, and you think they’ll never allow Jesus into their lives. And there those who lock doors to Jesus out of shame, who hide from God like Adam and Eve in the Garden, they are ashamed of their sins, they fear going to Confession, they fear repentance and change of heart, and so they just hide.

But even shame, Pope Francis says, is a gift from God. Shame is a first step toward repentance. Shame is a sign that the conscience is still alive. Shame isn’t so much a locked door, but a sign that there is something, someone outside of ourselves .The tragedy, Pope Francis says is when we are no longer ashamed of anything. Let us not be afraid to experience shame! He says. Let us pass from shame to forgiveness!

Neither shame, nor pride, nor fear, are complete obstacles to the Lord Jesus. Know that he is with you now, in your locked rooms, announcing the invitation of his peace. For those who do not recognize his presence with them, et us pray assiduously that every imprisoned mind and selfish heart may come to detect his presence and know his mercy. No doubt, the very way he wishes to enter into the lives of nonbelievers and unrepentant sinners is through us, through those prayers, and acts of charity, the phone call, the hot meal or the plate of cookies, perhaps reaching out to that family member who we haven’t spoken to for years.

The mission of the Church now and always is bring the peace of Christ into the locked doors of the world, and we will be ever more effective in this mission, when we have opened every locked door of our own mind and heart to him through prayer and penance and works of mercy for the glory of God and salvation of souls.