When Pope John Paul II first proclaimed today as a universal Feast of the Divine Mercy, there were plenty of liturgists who tut-tutted. Easter, with its eight days, they rightly pointed out, is the most important feast or celebration in the liturgical year. So each of the eight days of Easter Day is liturgically privileged: any other celebration that would normally fall on their dates, even a great solemnity, must be supplanted that year. As for the Octave Day itself: that recalls the appearance of the Risen Lord to St. Thomas on the eighth day, as recounted in today’s Gospel. This also has great importance for the whole Church. Why the eighth day? Because for the Jews Eight is a number of completion, of plenitude: 7 + 1. For Christians in particular the eighth day is a pointer towards the endless Sabbath rest of heaven to which we are all called. Today is special also because of the great emphasis today’s Gospel lays on the physical reality of the risen Lord, so important for the faith of the whole Church. And today we hear the blessing pronounced by Jesus on us: on those who believe, even without having seen.
So the liturgists are certainly right that all of this is very very important. But clearly the faithful, or very large numbers of them, have responded to the idea of celebrating also Divine Mercy Sunday today with joy and enthusiasm. According to the visions of the Polish Saint Faustina Kowalska, it’s what the Lord asked of his Church: much as he asked for the Feast of Corpus Christi through Blessed Juliana of Liège in the 13th century. So John Paul ignored the liturgists and did it. Why? Partly of course because he had a great personal devotion to St. Faustina, whom he personally canonised. But even apart from that, clearly he thought her devotion very important and timely. What does the world in the 21st century need to hear from the Church? What do specifically modern people need to hear? And modern people in the middle of a pandemic crisis? At least part of the message, and indeed the heart of the message, has to be the proclamation of Divine Mercy, poured without limit over the world from the wounded heart of Jesus.
Ours sins are so great: they truly deserve God’s outpoured wrath. The Old Testament Prophets are full of passages about that. At present in our refectory we are reading Ezekiel: he has page after page of unremitting divine wrath. The nations have offended God by their sins: so they will be punished with dire calamity and horrible destruction. All of that historically happened, through successive invasions of Babylonians, then Persians, then Greeks, then Romans.
But the sins of the Old Testament are as nothing compared to our sins, for we have crucified the Incarnate God. That is the supreme culmination and focus of all the sins of the whole world, gathered into one terrible act. And what is the result of that? Not indeed the definitive outpouring of Divine Wrath, as justice would have indicated, but the definitive outpouring of Divine Mercy! Of course all that wrath predicted in the Old Testament was in function of that, and it finds its final meaning there. For from the pierced side of Jesus on the cross there came out blood and water - not just a little dribble, but a tide, a flood: more than sufficient to wash away the sins of anyone and everyone, no matter how bad, how sunk in corruption, how lost, how compromised they be. This outpoured flood was Divine love, divine mercy; stronger than wrath, stronger than sin, stronger than death.
As a matter of fact, a feast of Divine Mercy certainly does fit also, quite beautifully, with today’s liturgy. Today we celebrate Easter Day with all its fruits: new life for us, the forgiveness of our sins, the promise of heaven, our reconciliation with God, our becoming God’s children in Jesus Christ our Lord. Do we deserve any of that? No, no no!! It comes only from Divine Mercy! The more we grasp that fundamental fact, the better! And in today’s Gospel, we heard how the risen Lord on Easter day announced in the first place the forgiveness of sins, which is the outpouring of Divine Mercy - through the ministry of his Apostles - through the ministry of his Church.
As for St. Faustina:, I’d say you don’t necessarily have to be drawn to this particular devotion, with its picture; and you don’t necessarily have to take up the recitation of the special prayers on the rosary that goes with it. Lots of people do though, and find it all a life line. There are so many stories that go with that. Here is one. A young man had fallen out with his girl friend, and was suicidal. He had a gun, but went into a phone box to give her a final ring. When she heard his voice she put the phone down. For him, that was it. But then his eye fell on a Divine Mercy picture that someone had left in the phone box. And it offered him a gleam of new hope; of mercy... So he didn’t commit suicide, but went to a Catholic Church instead... There are so many stories like that....
Whether or not we follow the Mercy devotion strictly, what we must all unquestionably do is trust firmly in God’s Mercy, poured out from the wounded side of Christ; and often turn to it, and ask for it.
So now, using the prayers dictated by St. Faustina: “We offer to God the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus, in atonement for our sins and the sins of the whole world. And we ask: for the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us, and on the whole world. Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us, and on the whole world.”