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:
Making all of us missionaries of mercy:
Divine Mercy reaches human beings through the heart of Christ crucified: “My daughter, say that I am love and mercy personified”, Jesus will ask Sr Faustina. Christ pours out this mercy on humanity though the sending of the Spirit who, in the Trinity, is the Person-Love. And is not mercy love’s “second name”, understood in its deepest and most tender aspect, in its ability to take upon itself the burden of any need and, especially, in its immense capacity for forgiveness?
Pope John Paul II, Mass for the Canonization of Sr. Mary Faustina Kowalska, April 30, 2000
Presenting the theme of mercy in a whole new way:
An image that brings a deeper appreciation of God’s mercy:
“And you, child, will be called prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give his people knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God by which the daybreak from on high will visit us to shine on those who sit in darkness and death’s shadow, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”
Luke 1: 76-79
Words of Divine Mercy:
Focusing completely on the mercy of God:
Jesus invites sinners to the table of the kingdom: “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” He invites them to that conversion without which one cannot enter the Kingdom, but shows them in word and deed his Father’s boundless mercy for them and the vast “joy in Heaven over one sinner who repents”. The supreme proof of his love will be the sacrifice of his own life “for the forgiveness of sins”.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 545
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
Biblical answers:
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