The underlying message of the Gospel is the promise of God’s abundant love and mercy which is offered to even the worst sinners.
A special devotion and message of Divine Mercy began in the 1930s when Jesus appeared to a Polish nun who wrote about the encounters in her diary.
Jesus asked Sister Mary Faustina Kowalska to paint the now familiar image of how Jesus appeared to her and which reminds us that Jesus always comes to us asking us to place our trust in Him.
During her encounters, St. Faustina received a special prayer from Jesus that promises great graces when asking God’s mercy for us and for the whole world.
A powerful Divine Mercy novena is also prayed using this chaplet, popularly prayed for nine days and starting on Good Friday. Another special prayer is prayed at 3:00 PM, when Jesus died for us on the Cross.
Jesus also asked St. Faustina for a special feast, which was established by Pope John Paul II in 2000. Divine Mercy Sunday is now celebrated by the Church on the Sunday after Easter.
The visions of a young nun:
Recounting Jesus’ immense mercy toward sinners:
The Gospel is the revelation in Jesus Christ of God’s mercy to sinners. The angel announced to Joseph: “You shall call his name Jesus, for He will save his people from their sins.” The same is true of the Eucharist, the sacrament of redemption: “This is my Blood of the Covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
Catechism of the Catholic Church 1846
Presenting the theme of mercy in a whole new way:
An image that brings a deeper appreciation of God’s mercy:
Wherever respect for life and human dignity are lacking, there is need of God’s merciful love, in whose light we see the inexpressible value of every human being. Mercy is needed in order to ensure that every injustice in the world will come to an end in the splendour of truth. Today, therefore, in this Shine, I wish solemnly to entrust the world to Divine Mercy. I do so with the burning desire that the message of God’s merciful love, proclaimed here through Saint Faustina, may be made known to all the peoples of the Earth and fill their hearts with hope. May this message radiate from this place to our beloved homeland and throughout the world. May the binding promise of the Lord Jesus be fulfilled: from here there must go forth “the spark which will prepare the world for his final coming”.
Pope John Paul II, Dedication of the Shrine of Divine Mercy, August 17, 2002
Words of Divine Mercy:
Focusing completely on the mercy of God:
All of us once lived among them in the desires of our flesh, following the wishes of the flesh and the impulses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest. But God, Who is rich in mercy, because of the great love He had for us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to life with Christ (by grace you have been saved), raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
Ephesians 2: 3-7
Making all of us missionaries of mercy:
A call to be merciful in a merciless world:
Receiving the graces of Divine Mercy Sunday:
The devotional aspects of the message of Divine Mercy:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
Ora et Labora:
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