Second Sunday of Easter. Sunday of Divine Mercy
Each year, on the Second Sunday of Easter—the last
day of the Easter Octave—the Church celebrates the Sunday of Divine Mercy.
On this day, we contemplate the fullness of the Paschal Mystery—Christ’s Passion, death, and Resurrection. The basis of the whole Easter Mystery is the merciful love of God.
From the beginning of creation, throughout Scripture, and most perfectly in the life, Passion, death and Resurrection of his Son, Jesus, God has been revealed as love itself. In His infinite love for us, God desires nothing more than to forgive our sins and offer us His mercy.
In his 1980 encyclical Dives in Misericordia (“Rich in Mercy”), Pope John Paul II writes,
“Believing in [God’s] love means believing in mercy. For mercy is an indispensible dimension of love; it is as it were love’s second name and, at the same time, the specific manner in which love is revealed” (No. 7).
Salvation history is rich with evidence of this truth. From the beginning, the Covenant that the Lord established with the people of Israel reflected the nature of His love. As He gives the Ten Commandments to Moses, He promises to show “mercy to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments” (Exodus 20:6, RSV).
Later, again to Moses, God gives this description of himself: “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy and faithfulness, keeping merciful love for thousands” (Exodus 34:6-7, RSV).
As the Old Testament narratives continue, we see the people of Israel habitually turning to God in their sin and misery as a child turns to his father, trusting in his merciful forgiveness.
King David sings of the Lord who is “merciful and gracious,” “slow to anger and abounding in mercy” and who does not deal with us according to our sins (see Psalms 103, Psalms 145). Even the prophets, who preach a message of destruction to Israel for its infidelity, speak also of the mercy that the Lord wishes to lavish upon it if only the people will return to Him (see Jeremiah 3:12; Hosea 14:3).
Although the reality of God’s great compassion is unmistakably established and confirmed in the history of the Old Testament, it is the coming of His Son that gives the world the actual incarnation of this love and mercy. Pope John Paul’s encyclical observes:
“Christ confers on the whole of the Old Testament tradition about God’s mercy a definitive meaning. Not only does he speak of it … but above all he himself makes it incarnate and personifies it. He himself, in a certain sense, is mercy” (No. 2).
Christ’s entire life can be seen as a testimony to the mercy of God.
At His conception, Our Lady sang her great hymn of thanksgiving: “His mercy is from age to age to those who fear Him.” (Luke 1:50).
At the start of Christ’s public ministry, He proclaimed, “release to the captives” (Luke 4:18, RSV), and later, “blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy” (Matthew 5:7).
In the words of His last agony, Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34). Indeed, the presence of Jesus Christ in the world reveals to us the face of God, who is the “Father of mercies” (2 Corinthians 1:3, RSV).
-Simply Catholic, Lydia Borja
Saint Sister Maria Faustina Kowalska: Mankind’s need for the message of Divine Mercy took on dire urgency in the 20th Century, when civilization began to experience an “eclipse of the sense of God” and, therefore to lose the understanding of the sanctity and inherent dignity of human life. In the 1930s, Jesus chose a humble Polish nun, Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, to receive private revelations concerning Divine Mercy that were recorded in her Diary.
Saint John Paul II explains:
"This was precisely the time when those ideologies of evil, nazism and communism, were taking shape. Sister Faustina became the herald of the one message capable of off-setting the evil of those ideologies, that fact that God is mercy—the truth of the merciful Christ. And for this reason, when I was called to the See of Peter, I felt impelled to pass on those experiences of a fellow Pole that deserve a place in the treasury of the universal Church."
~ Pope Saint John Paul II, Memory and Identity (2005)
Divine Mercy Sunday: Saint Faustina’s Diary records 14 occasions when Jesus requested that a Feast of Mercy (Divine Mercy Sunday) be observed, for example:
My daughter, tell the whole world about My inconceivable mercy. I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and 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. … Let no soul fear to draw near to Me. … 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.
(Diary, no. 699)
On May 5, 2000, five days after the canonization of Saint Faustina, the Vatican decreed that the Second Sunday of Easter would henceforth be known as Divine Mercy Sunday.
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
The Image: Jesus appeared to Saint Faustina in a vision, with his right hand raised in a blessing and his left touching his garment above his heart. Red and white rays emanate from his heart, symbolizing the blood and water that was poured out for our salvation and our sanctification.
The Lord requested that “Jesus, I trust in You” be inscribed under his image. Jesus asked that his image be painted and venerated throughout the world: “I promise that the soul that will venerate this image will not perish” (Diary, no. 48) and “By means of this image I will grant many graces to souls” (Diary, no. 742).
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Sister Faustina was a young, uneducated nun in a convent of the Congregation of Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in Poland during the 1930s. She came from a poor family that struggled during the years of World War I. She had only three years of simple education, so hers were the humblest tasks in the convent, usually in the kitchen or garden.
However, she received extraordinary revelations — or messages — from our Lord Jesus. Jesus asked Sr. Faustina to record these experiences, which she compiled into notebooks. These notebooks are known today as the Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, and the words contained within are God's loving message of Divine Mercy.
Though the Divine Mercy message is not new to the teachings of the Church, Sr. Faustina's Diary sparked a great movement, and a strong and significant focus on the mercy of Christ.
Saint John Paul II canonized Sister Faustina in 2000, making her the "first saint of the new millennium." Speaking of Sr. Faustina and the importance of the message contained in her Diary, the Pope called her "the great apostle of Divine Mercy in our time."
The Chaplet of Divine Mercy: The Chaplet was also given to Saint Faustina with this promise: “Encourage souls to say the chaplet which I have given you” (Diary, no. 1541). “Whoever will recite it will receive great mercy at the hour of death. … Even if there were a sinner most hardened, if he were to recite this chaplet only once, he would receive grace from My infinite mercy. I desire that the whole world know My infinite mercy” (Diary, no. 687).
How to Pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy:
1.) Optional Opening Prayers:
You expired, Jesus, but the source of life gushed forth for souls,
and the ocean of mercy opened up for the whole world.
O Fount of Life, unfathomable Divine Mercy,
envelop the whole world and empty Yourself out upon us.
2.) Repeat the following 3 times: O Blood and Water, which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fountain of Mercy for us, I trust in You!
3.) Pray: the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Apostles' Creed
4.) For each of the five decades
(On each “Our Father” bead of the rosary, pray)
Eternal Father, I offer you the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your Dearly Beloved Son, Our Lord, Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.
(On each of the 10 “Hail Mary” beads, pray)
For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.
5.) Concluding prayer (Repeat 3 times)
Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us and on the whole world.
6.) Optional Closing Prayer
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.
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
The Divine Mercy Novena: Jesus gave St. Faustina nine intentions for which to pray the Chaplet beginning on Good Friday and ending on the Saturday before Divine Mercy Sunday.
LEARN MORE about a novena.
- United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
SELECT HERE for the Audio recording of the Readings of April 11th, 2021, Sunday of Divine Mercy. Second Sunday of Easter.
SELECT HERE for the Readings of April 11th, 2021, Sunday of Divine Mercy. Second Sunday of Easter.
The National Shrine of The Divine Mercy is a Catholic shrine located in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The Catholic priests and and brothers of the Congregation of Marian Fathers of the Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary have resided on Eden Hill in Stockbridge, since June 1944.
VISIT the website for the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy.
VIEW HERE the Diary of Saint Sister Faustina.