On the second Sunday of the Easter season, March 30 this year, the Catholic world celebrates Divine Mercy Sunday. It became official when Pope John Paul II canonized Saint Maria Faustina on April 30, 2000. On this day all the mysteries and graces of Holy Week and Easter converge. The opening prayer at Mass sums it up for us: “God of mercy, you wash away our sins in water, you give us new birth in the Spirit, and redeem us in the blood of Christ.”

When we were young most of us learned the eight beatitudes. One of them clearly states, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” What is this divine mercy that we commemorate on the eighth day of Easter? It all comes down to the realization that God’s mercy is much greater than our sins. When we call upon Him with great trust and contrition, we receive His mercy and we become instruments of His mercy for others. This special devotion to Jesus as The Divine Mercy is based on the writings of Sister Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun who wrote a diary in which she recorded the revelations she received about God’s mercy.

Who was Sister Faustina? She was a young sister of the Congregation of Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in Krakow, Poland, during the 1930s. Even though her duties in the convent were quite simple, she was the recipient of some extraordinary messages from the Lord. She was asked by Jesus to record her experiences and her notebooks are known today as the Diary of St. Maria Faustina Kowalska. When Pope John Paul II canonized her in 2000 he made her the “first saint of the new millennium.” The Pope called her “the great apostle of Divine Mercy in our time.”

The observance of Divine Mercy Sunday at the end of Easter week provides us with a very fitting liturgical coincidence. On this Sunday we always listen to the gospel in which the risen Jesus appears to St. Thomas, the apostle who doubted the resurrection when it was reported to him by his fellow apostles. He was not with them on that first Easter when Jesus came to them in the upper room. But the Lord, in his mercy, returned a second time and invited Thomas to touch his wounds, to doubt no longer and to believe. St. Thomas, deeply moved by the mercy, compassion and forgiveness of Jesus, responds with all his heart, “My Lord and my God.” Mercy does such things.

Pope John Paul II was an ardent spokesperson for the message of divine mercy. He wrote an encyclical on divine mercy in which he stated, “The message of Divine Mercy has always been near and dear to me… one which I took with me to the See of Peter and which, in a sense, forms the image of this pontificate.” He felt that divine mercy was truly the only solution to our world’s problems and an important message for the third millennium of Christianity. In 2002, he entrusted the whole world to Divine Mercy when he consecrated the International Shrine of The Divine Mercy in Lagiewniki, a suburb of Krakow in Poland, the site where the mortal remains of St. Faustina are entombed.

On Wednesday of next week, April 2, we shall commemorate the third anniversary of the death of that great pontiff. When you consider the late Pope’s deep devotion to Divine Mercy and St. Faustina, it should be no surprise that the Holy Father died on the Vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday, which that year fell on April 3.

Here in the United States we have a National Shrine of The Divine Mercy. It is located in Stockridge, Massachusetts. The Marians of the Immaculate Conception oversee the shrine and its many activities. This year on Mercy Sunday weekend they will be unveiling their long-anticipated Mother of Mercy Outdoor Shrine. A few weeks ago in my column I mentioned that the feast of the Annunciation, commemorating the moment when the angel Gabriel told Mary she was to be the mother of Jesus, would be celebrated on April 7. Wrong again. I misread my calendar. The feast is actually on Monday, March 31. The feast will extend Divine Mercy weekend and thereby remind us that so often the channel of God’s merciful love and forgiveness is Mary, the mother of the church and our mother, too.

Many of our people have become strong advocates for the various devotions associated with the observance of Divine Mercy Sunday. Certainly there is no obligation to provide special devotional services on Divine Mercy Sunday. But it is certainly praiseworthy that some of our churches in every part of the diocese make these devotions possible, much like providing Stations of the Cross in addition to the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion and Death on Good Friday. Displaying the image of The Divine Mercy has also become popular, particularly among some of our seminarians. Divine Mercy Sunday is no new feast day for Catholics. It remains the Octave Day of Easter and, as always, is observed as a solemnity on our liturgical calendar. Pope John Paul II gave the solemnity a new name, one which is especially appropriate as we celebrate the merciful presence of the risen Lord among his people, even in our own day.

The beautiful days of the Easter season and springtime in Oregon will continue until Pentecost Sunday, May 11 this year. Every single one of these days is for all of us a celebration of Divine Mercy. Our hearts are often troubled by doubts and sin, our own and those of others. The risen Jesus invites us, like St. Thomas, to touch his merciful wounds as he says, “Do not be unbelieving, but believe.” As individuals, as a church and as a nation, more than ever, we are in need of such merciful love. Praise God, it is ours for the asking.