Divine Mercy Sunday in 2016 falls on Sunday, April 3rd,
and I wanted to share with you a bit about Divine Mercy.
Back in 1981 Pope St. John Paul published an encyclical letter
entitled “Rich in Mercy,” in which he speaks of Christ as the
“incarnation of mercy… the inexhaustible source of mercy.” He
goes on to say that “Christ's messianic program, the program of
mercy” must become “the program of His people, the program of the
Church.”
Pope St. John Paul was a great promoter of Divine Mercy and a devotion to St. Faustina, the nun that is credited with giving us the Divine Mercy Chaplet. St. Faustina was born Helen Kowalska on August 25th, 1905 in Glogowiec, Poland. She was the third of 10 children and was baptized in the parish church of Swince Warckie. From a young age, she always had a love of prayer, was diligent and obedient, and had a great love and concern for the poor.
It is said that she had visions of the suffering Christ, and as a
result, felt a call to become a nun. On August 1st, 1925,
she entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy and
took the name Sr. Maria Faustina of the Most Blessed Sacrament. She
lived as a member of the Congregation for 13 years residing in
Cracow, Plock, and Vilinius, where she worked as a cook, gardener,
and porter.
At the request of her spiritual director, Fr. Michael Sopocko, and
later at the command of the Lord Jesus Christ, she started writing a
diary of her spiritual experiences and the mercy she felt from our
Lord Jesus Christ. From these experiences and mercy she encountered
from Jesus came the Divine Mercy chaplet.
Sr. Faustina developed tuberculosis, suffering a great deal, all the
while offering her suffering up for poor sinners. Sr. Faustina died
in Cracow at the age of 33 on October 5th, 1938. Her
remains rest at the Shrine of The Divine Mercy in Lagiewniki near
Cracow.
Pope St. John Paul had a special devotion to Sr. Faustina and
promoted her cause for Sainthood. She was beatified on April 18th,
1993 and then canonized on April 30th, 2000. Divine Mercy
Sunday was instituted by Pope St. John Paul in 1993 and indicated
that it should be celebrated the first Sunday after Easter.
To find out more about St. Faustina and the Divine Mercy Chaplet, I
recommend that you obtain a copy of “The Divine Mercy: Message and
Devotion” booklet. In it you'll learn more about St. Faustina and
the many struggles she had in her life and how her writings about the
Divine Mercy were finally accepted by the Church. I also encourage
you to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet daily.
“Eternal Father, I offer you the Body & Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your Dearly beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.”
YES. It is very interesting how that because of a typo the message of Divine Mercy was blocked for a number of years and it was Pope John Paul II while he was a cardinal who investigated the cause and confirmed that it was genuine. The message of Divine Mercy was (and still is) promulgated in the US by the Marian Helpers and they have produced materials--videos and literature--which they produced several years before St. Pope John Paul II finally declared the Feast of Divine Mercy and the cause for St. Faustina's canonization. There is an excellent video all about St. Faustina and the message of DIVINE MERCY entitled "DIVINE MERCY--NO ESCAPE" narrated by a famous actress who is now deceased, Helen Hayes. Every year they host a celebration (Mass, procession, chaplet, Benediction) of Divine Mercy Sunday at their headquarters in Stockbridge, Massachusetts and it is aired on EWTN.
ReplyDeleteA holy Polish nun, a holy Polish cardinal who became Pope, and the message of Divine Mercy are all intimately entwined. St. Pope John Paul II died on the eve of the Feast of Divine Mercy. And now Pope Francis has declared this year the Jubilee Year of Mercy. One of the messages of Divine Mercy as Our LORD JESUS revealed to St. Faustina back in the 1930s, shortly before WWII began in Europe is that the LORD longs for people to come to His Mercy and that ultimately if people refuse to come to His mercy they will have to experience His justice. But the LORD really wants people to come to His Mercy and He keeps reaching out to us. From Arlene
"For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world" (From the chaplet of Divine Mercy). It is especially important to pray this prayer for the dying. In the film "DIVINE MERCY-NO ESCAPE" there is a scene when Sister Faustina is called from sleep to go to the bedside of a dying man. He was struggling and there were all sorts of demons around him, but she kept praying the chaplet, they disappeared, and he died in peace.