Feasting on Divine Mercy

Family Matters: Catholic Culture

(photo: Wikipedia)

April 12 is the feast of Divine Mercy. St. John Paul II designated the Second Sunday of Easter to be “Divine Mercy Sunday,” in keeping with the Lord’s request in private revelations to St. Faustina Kowalska in the 1930s.

John Paul repeatedly stressed the particular need of modern humanity for the great gift of God’s mercy.

According to St. Faustina, Our Lord promised complete remission of sins to those who make a good confession and worthily receive the Eucharist on the mercy feast day.

An individual Catholic can celebrate the feast by going to confession and receiving the Eucharist worthily.

Some work of mercy towards others would also be appropriate, e.g., perhaps a collection for a needy charity or other almsgiving.

The most basic celebration of the feast in a parish would be explaining its meaning and the Lord’s promises about it. Display of the image of Divine Mercy (e.g., in the sanctuary) would be most proper. That much can — and should — be done at every Mass. Some notice of the feast should appear in the bulletin two weeks earlier (i.e., on Palm and Easter Sundays) so that people can also avail themselves of opportunities for sacramental reconciliation.

That is the minimum of what should be done. Unfortunately, however, the minimum often becomes the maximum.

But the feast is an opportunity to incorporate its spirituality more broadly into the life of parishioners and of the parish. So what can parishes do to spread the mercy message?

1. It should be an opportunity to teach people about various aspects of the Divine Mercy devotion. Why not include the Chaplet of Divine Mercy after all Masses?

2. It is an excellent opportunity to explain the devotion of meditation on Jesus’ passion for a moment every day at 3pm, especially Fridays.

3. St. Faustina also spoke of a Divine Mercy novena preceding the feast, which starts on Good Friday.   “Preparing and Celebrating the Paschal Feasts,” a 1988 Vatican document on liturgical preparation for Easter, encouraged popular devotions on Good Friday evening, e.g., Stations of the Cross with confessions available. The pope does this annually by celebrating the Way of the Cross at the Colosseum. The Divine Mercy novena can conveniently be inserted here. The novena extends throughout the Easter Octave, a wonderful way to celebrate Easter fully.

4. Planning is also required to make sacramental reconciliation generously available in the immediate time before the feast. Mercy requires reckoning with oneself before God.

5. Parishes can include a special Divine Mercy Mass and Chaplet at 3pm on Divine Mercy Sunday. It could be preceded by opportunities for confession. But the devotion should be highlighted at every Mass.

6. Encourage “annual/biannual Catholics” who come to Mass only at Christmas and Easter to take advantage of the Lord’s message of mercy and his call to draw back lost sheep. Devotion to Divine Mercy should lead to ongoing ways for the parish to extend mercy to those in need: feeding the hungry, teaching the ignorant, comforting the bereaved, etc. 

The Divine Mercy devotion can bear much fruit in individuals’ and parishes’ lives — “Jesus, I trust in you.”

John M. Grondelski writes from Shanghai, China.