Second Sunday of Easter - Sunday of Divine Mercy
I remember the first live-streamed holy hour and adoration we had after the stay-at-home order came into effect. I remember kneeling right here. I had not thought out how I would spend the hour, except that I wanted to spent time in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. However, my prayer instinctively was, “Mercy Lord, mercy! Have mercy on us and on the whole world!” My focus that entire hour was on mercy! More than anything else, these are days for mercy. These days, when uncertainty, despair, fear, and grief rule the world, are also the days of mercy. Today is Divine Mercy Sunday – the day we revel in the mercy of God. This is the day we seek God’s mercy, receive God’s mercy, are sent forth to bear witness to God’s mercy, and commit ourselves to a mission of mercy.
As I reread the story of Maria Faustina, the woman who was responsible for the origin of Divine Mercy Sunday, I realized how tormented her short life was. It also reminded me of how tormented our lives are these days, how tormented the world is, and how tormented the poor are today. These are the days of Divine Mercy. Here are my three points for today.
- The Story of a Tormented Woman! The story of Maria Faustina Kowalska is a very tormented yet touching story. Altogether, she lived for a brief 33 years, the same amount of time we assume Jesus lived. Born in 1905, she first felt the call to become a religious at the age of 7. Her parents refused, and rightly so. Then at 16, after a social dance at a park, she literally ran away from home to go to Warsaw. No convent would accept her. One of them even said, “We do not accept maids here!” When the mother superior of the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy did receive her, she did not have the money to pay for her religious habit. She then worked as a housemaid to make the money she needed. After her religious profession, and then as a nun, she was often assigned menial tasks, sometimes as a cook and other times as a gardener in the convents. It was during these tormented times that Christ was beginning to reveal himself to her as ‘Divine Mercy.’ When she first shared of her apparitions, visions, and conversations with her companions, nobody believed her. On the contrary, she was asked to submit herself to psychological tests. Fortunately, when she was found to be of sound mind, her confessor began to give credibility to her mystical experience. Soon thereafter, however, she was stuck with illness (most probably tuberculosis), and on Oct 5, 1938, she was gone! Before her death, though, she had predicted a terrible war. Not one, but two World Wars happened soon after. Her diary, which she kept throughout these tormented years, has now become legendary. It has also become the prayer of the millions of people who pray the chaplet of Divine Mercy. My point is simple – mercy came to a tormented woman! Where torment is, there is also Divine Mercy!
- The Story of a Tormented Church! Like Maria Faustina, the post-resurrection early church was a tormented Church. However, in the midst of their torment, Diving Mercy never failed the nascent churh. The early church basked in the light of God’s mercy. For example, in today’ first reading, Peter says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ…” (1 Pet 1:3). Peter know exactly what this meant. He was in the room that day when Christ appeared to the tormented disciples. Purely out of fear, out of pure despair, pure doubt, and pure uncertainty, they had locked themselves in a room. To them Divine Mercy appeared and said, “Peace be with you!” Not once, but three times in today’s the gospel reading Jesus offered them, “Peace!”. Who among us does not want to hear that said to us today? And when he had calmed their soul, he breathed on them the Holy Spirit and sent them forth on a mission of mercy and reconciliation. For me, personally, just as that day when my instinct zeroed in on Divine Mercy, I have spent these days in the arms of Divine Mercy. Many, many of you have mailed me, called me, sent me card to see how I am doing. I have found great comfort in your concern. To be honest, I am very anxious about all of you, the people on the frontlines, and especially the poor. I feel concerned about my mother and my family in India. My niece is an anesthesiologist, and she will begin her COVID duty this week. I am terrified for her. Through it all, though, my spirits are high. I am not faking it! My spirit is surprisingly high. I have kept myself focused on Divine Mercy that comes to us in our torment. I have often put myself in the same room that the disciples were in. I have allowed the mercy and peace of Christ to sweep over my soul. I have also focused on sharing Divine Mercy with others. Whether it is channeling food and grocery cards to those in need, helping the poor, having conversations with people, praying with them, live-streaming Mass every day, offering encouragement, visiting the dying, bringing comfort at funerals – my task these days is to be the sacrament of Mercy! More than at any other time, these are the days of and for Mercy. These days, then, let us rely on Mercy. Let us find our strength and our hope in Divine Mercy. Let the same Mercy, propel us to be sacraments of Mercy to a tormented people of a tormented world!
- The Story of A Tormented World! Even before COVID-19 hit the world, our world was already a tormented world! Squabbling, artificial and petty wars that claimed thousands of lives, gun violence, partisanship, arms race, leaders trading insults and tirades, people treating people like scum was rampant. And then came coronavirus. While we see so much pain and heartache, so much beauty is also coming to the fore. There is the story of Jim Mullen. The headline for his story reads, “He left his family to save strangers. He’s not sure if he is coming back.” Jim let his home, his very loved wife, and their 2-year-old precious daughter in Dallas and joined a hospital in New York, to be a volunteer nurse in the epicenter of the pandemic. As I speak about him, he is completing his 21-day- straight, 12-hour-shifts, and has seen horror unveil before his unbelieving eyes. Even now, he does not know long it will last. When asked about the risk of never making it back home he says, “What better way to go out?” A few days back, he was signing legal paperwork to make sure that his wife and daughter would be as secure as they could be, just if he did not make it back! This is one story among thousands of stories – stories I call, “stories of mercy in a tormented world!” There are many people today, who in the midst of crisis are continuing to be partisan, prejudiced, hateful, selfish, and sowing seeds of distrust. The world does not belong to them. Rather, our model is the early church in the midst of a tormented world. Today’s first reading tells us, “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their property and possessions and divide them among all according to each one’s need” (Acts 2:44-45). Seeking the common good – that is the face of the church in a tormented world. The world belongs to people like Mary Faustina, like Jim Mullen, like Christ, the early church, who washed the world with rays of mercy! May you and I be counted a people who made the world a world of Divine Mercy! world belongs to people like Mary Faustina, like Jim Mullen, like Christ, who washed the world with rays of mercy! May you and I be counted a people who made the world a world of Divine Mercy!
Let me end this reflection with the concluding prayer for the chaplet of Divine Mercy. “Eternal God, in whom mercy is endless and the treasury of compassion inexhaustible, look kindly upon us and increase Your mercy in us, that in difficult moments we might not despair nor become despondent, but with great confidence submit ourselves to Your holy will, which is Love and Mercy itself. Amen.”
- Fr. Satish Joseph