Today we celebrate the Feast of Divine Mercy. It was Our Lord's explicit desire, given to us through St. Faustina, that this feast be celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter. Pope John Paul II in his homily given at the canonization of St. Faustina on April 30, 2000, declared: "It is important then that we accept the whole message that comes to us from the word of God on this Second Sunday of Easter, which from now on throughout the Church, will be called ‘Divine Mercy Sunday.' "
Clearly, Divine Mercy Sunday is not a new feast established to celebrate St. Faustina's revelations. Indeed, it is not primarily about St. Faustina at all — nor is it altogether a new feast! As many commentators have pointed out, The Second Sunday of Easter was already a solemnity as the Octave Day of Easter; nevertheless, the title "Divine Mercy Sunday" does highlight and amplify the meaning of the day. In this way, it recovers an ancient liturgical tradition, reflected in a teaching attributed to St. Augustine about the Easter Octave, those 8 days of solemn celebration of Easter, which he called "the days of mercy and pardon;" and the Octave Day itself, the 8th day, this Sunday, he called "the compendium of the days of mercy."
Liturgically the Easter Octave has always been centered on the theme of Divine Mercy and forgiveness. Divine Mercy Sunday therefore, point us to the merciful love of God that lies behind the whole Paschal Mystery —that is, that lies behind the mystery of the death, burial, resurrection, ascension of Christ and the sending of the Holy Spirit. And Divine Mercy Sunday points us to the fact that these events are not just past events but are truly made present for us in the Holy Eucharist along with their living giving Power. In this way, Divine Mercy Sunday also sums up the whole Easter Octave. As Pope John Paul II pointed out in his Regina Caeli address on Divine Mercy Sunday, 1995: "the whole octave of Easter is like a single day," and the Octave Sunday is meant to be the day of "thanksgiving for the goodness God has shown to man in the whole Easter mystery." This whole Easter mystery, which is available to us here and now through the Sacred Liturgy on this Sunday and every Sunday which is a “Divine Mercy Sunday.”
Divine Mercy Sunday, the Octave Day of Easter, is a day then that celebrates the merciful love of God shining through the whole Easter Triduum and the whole Easter mystery. And so, it is also a day of declaration of repentance from and reparation for all sin; thus it is the Day of Atonement in which we beg God’s Mercy on us and on the whole world by participating in the Holy Mass more fully, consciously and actually, offering the Body, blood soul and divinity, along with ourselves, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world. We do this so that our whole world would receive the grace of repentance and so open itself up to the paschal mystery, each soul becoming reconciled with God and so become one with God, and in the love of this divine union live lives of holiness to repair the damage cause by sin, in to heal our world so that all would have life and have to the full. Not just eternal life, but life itself…the fullness of life, to be truly alive, which is to live in union with God who is Life Itself.
These are surely trying times; perhaps, some of the most troubling times our world has ever seen. Never before has our faith been so important and so needed to see us through to the other side. When will the world see that our current crises has at its root the loss of faith in God and in His One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, and a loss of morality based on God’s commandments and teachings given to us through that same Church. The message of Divine Mercy is the answer to our trouble times, and the only key to overcome them.
The Divine Mercy message is really the same solution Our Blessed Mother has given us in her many modern apparitions, especially at Fatima and continuing through her message at Akita Japan. This solution, was presented as a “Message of Hope”, and it not only gives us the solution for weathering the storm that is upon us but also for reversing the ills of our age, all caused by sin, and bringing about the Era of Peace also promised by Our Lady at Fatima. This “Message of Hope” was by the way summed up doing the pontificate of John Paul II.
The message of Divine Mercy and the Message of Fatima are one in the same message; it is a message of Hope through trust in God’s mercy and forgiveness available to us through the faithful, trustful and reverential and loving reception of the Sacraments, and especially the most blessed of all Sacraments, the Holy Eucharist, in which we are called to adore the very Person of the Divine Mercy of the Father, because it Jesus, the Son of the Father, God Himself sent to heal and save us in order to make us one with the Father.
And so what is this “Message of Hope” given to us from heaven itself through Our Lady and Our Mother at her apparitions and continued through to the message of Divine Mercy? How do we live it and make it operative in our life. The Message of Hope can be basically summed up with the four following themes: Sin; Grace; Personal Holiness; and Consecration
First; Sin: This May not readily come to mind, but sin—whether personal sin, or the unfortunate consequences of Original Sin—is the root cause of all pain, death, wars, disease, and even natural disasters (cf: Romans 8:20-22); in short, all suffering and unhappiness. Sin is the real problem in our world today, better yet, unrepentant sin is the real problem in our world today; is that which keeps us and others from an intimate relationship and so oneness with our Loving God. And so we need to repent of our sin and turn back to God in trust. But in order to do so we need Grace:
Grace: The Redemption won by Jesus at Easter is far greater than the Fall of Man. However, man experiences a constant battle between choosing the high road of grace and the low road of sin, which all of us experience in our own lives. God’s grace is a stronger force—by far—than the evil and the allure of sin; and more, it repairs the damage caused by our own sin as well as the sin of others. This is commonly referred to as reparation. And reparation is the only lasting answer for poverty, war, economic woes and all the terrible effects of the damage caused by sin. This brings us to personal holiness.
Personal Holiness is essential: Personal holiness is achieved by fulfilling God’s Will for us. Holiness is growing in our love for God and neighbor, particularly by making use of the means of obtaining grace; that is, through through prayer, formation ( that is continually learning more our faith and our to live it; i.e. the teachings of the Church and how to live them), faithful reception of the sacraments, especially confession and the Holy Mass.
Holiness is cooperating with God’s grace, by faithfully fulfilling our daily religious and worldly duties. In this we becomes a means of grace for others. Our lives help others to turn away from sin and accept the fullness of the Gospel message and so turn to God.
A powerful spiritual reality that comes out of holiness, is that just as the sin of one person harms other people, so also, one person’s holiness can help others tremendously, and offset the effects of others people’s sin. Unfortunately, there seems to be a lot more people sinning in the world than there are sincerely trying to do God’s Will. So, it’s obvious that the small number of us that are trying, that our own merits are not enough, in these crucial times, to turn things around. THAT’S WHY WE all NEED
Consecration: Consecration means to entrust our self to another in a loving gift of our self to another (An example is marriage). In this case we are speaking of total Consecration to Jesus through Mary, in union with St. Joseph! Since our personal holiness is not enough to offset the terrible evils of our day, we need to give ourselves, our good works and merits to Mary, God’s perfect creature, so that she can increase their value before giving them to her Son on our behalf. Her merits are greater than those of all the saints combined! Our meager merits, multiplied by hers, magnified by hers, will offset the effects of sin, thus giving the forces of evil less power in our world.
By giving our merits, our good works and works of mercy, to Mary, she can generate far more “reparative power” than we could ever do on our own. Devotion to Mary is the surest and safest way to humbly obtain God’s mercy from her Divine Son Jesus. And St. Joseph is our model, showing us how to best live out our consecration to Jesus through Mary in every thing we do. This consecration to Jesus through Mary in union with St. Joseph is shown by the wearing of the Holy Scapular of the Blessed Mary; it is the wedding ring, if you will, a sign of our total consecration.
As part of our consecration we pray the rosary daily as way to ask our Lady to help us live out daily and practically our consecration to Her and so become one with Her Son, and to the Father and the Holy Spirit through Him. She is the mediatrix of all grace. Souls and families who entrust themselves by consecrating themselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary will survive these crucial and decisive times; consecration to our Lady is equivalent to getting on the ark before the flood, spiritually speaking.
To further help you understand Consecration to Jesus through Mary and the message of hope I would recommend the books on Total Consecration by St. Louis De Montfort or by St. Maximilian Kolbe. And To help your whole family understand, and live the Message of Hope I would highly recommend the website: www.familyholiness.com.
I want to end by praying a prayer of consecration to Mary and to Her Immaculate heart. As I do so, I ask that you please join me in your hearts, by making an act of your will in which you give yourself and entrust yourself to Jesus through Mary in union with St. Joseph.
Prayer of Consecration to Our Lady:
Virgin of Fatima, Mother of Mercy, Queen of Heaven and Earth, Refuge of Sinners, we consecrate ourselves in a very special way to your Immaculate Heart.
By this act of consecration we intend to live, with you and through you, all the obligations assumed by our baptismal consecration. We further pledge to bring about in ourselves that interior conversion so urgently demanded by the Gospel, a conversion that will free us of every attachment to ourselves and to easy compromises with the world so that, like you, we may be available only to do always the Will of the Father.
And as we resolve to entrust to you, O Mother most sweet and merciful, our life and vocation as Christians, that you may dispose of it according to your designs of salvation in this hour of decision that weighs upon the world, we pledge to live it according to your desires, especially as it pertains to a renewed spirit of prayer and penance, the fervent participation in the celebration of the Eucharist and in the works of the apostolate, the daily recitation of the holy rosary, and an austere manner of life in keeping with the Gospel, that shall be to all a good example of the observance of the Law of God and the practice of the Christian virtues, especially that of purity.
We further promise you to be united with the Holy Father, with the hierarchy and with our priests, in order thus to set up a barrier to the growing confrontation directed against the Magisterium, that threatens the very foundation of the Church.
Under your protection, we want moreover to be apostles of this sorely needed unity of prayer and love for the Pope, on whom we invoke your special protection. And lastly, insofar as is possible, we promise to lead those souls with whom we come in contact to a renewed devotion to you.
Mindful that atheism has caused shipwreck in the faith to a great number of the faithful, that desecration has entered into the holy temple of God, and that evil and sin are spreading more and more throughout the world, we make so bold as to lift our eyes trustingly to you, O Mother of Jesus and our merciful and powerful Mother, and we invoke again today and await from you the salvation of all your children, O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.
(with ecclesiastical approval)
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