Today is called Divine Mercy Sunday. On this Sunday we are called by Our Lord to cleave to him as our hope, our rock and our refuge. It is good news for ALL sinners. It points to the grace of mercy that is close at hand, at our finger tips and waiting to be given to us, if only we ask. It is a call for us to rise out of a life of impenitence; an impenitence which leads many to die in sin and be lost forever. The state of impenitence is like a black fog that wraps many in a state of wilful blindness that does not want to be disturbed by talk of judgment, heaven and hell. Rather, many think that this is all morbid or unreal. But the cost of mercy that Jesus shows to his disciples on the cross has now become the grace of mercy as found in our Gospel today [John 20:19-23].

Jesus is not a superstar of power but, in the words of Cardinal Fulton Sheen, a ‘super-scar’ of mercy and he wishes all to receive his mercy no matter how badly they may have sinned. All we need to do is ask him and he will give us this great gift that is priceless. On receiving this great pearl without price he then asks us to live in his grace of mercy every day, offering to others what we have received from the Lord Jesus, namely mercy: ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.’

The message of mercy is that God loves us — all of us — no matter how great our sins. He wants us to recognize that His mercy is greater than our sins, it cannot be exhausted by our sins. So he calls on us to put our trust in his mercy, to receive His mercy, and let his mercy flow through us to others [see the Corporal and Spiritual works of Mercy]. Thus, all will come to share His joy.

It is a message we can call to mind simply by remembering ABC.

A       Ask for His Mercy. God wants us to approach Him in prayer constantly, repenting of our sins and asking Him to pour His mercy out upon us and upon the whole world.

B       Be merciful. God wants us to receive His mercy and let it flow through us to others. He wants us to extend love and forgiveness to others just as He does to us.

C       Completely trust in Jesus. God wants us to know that the graces of His mercy are dependent upon our trust. The more we trust in Jesus, the more we will receive.

Divine Mercy Sunday was established by St Pope John Paul II and this devotion to the Divine Mercy is based on the private revelations of St. Faustina Kowalska [1905-1938]. The years Sr. Faustina spent at the convent were filled with extraordinary gifts, such as revelations, visions, hidden stigmata, participation in the Passion of the Lord, the gift of bi-location, the reading of human souls, the gift of prophecy, and the rare gift of mystical engagement and marriage. 

The living relationship with God, the Blessed Mother, the angels, the saints, the souls in Purgatory — with the entire supernatural world — was as equally real for her as was the world she perceived with her senses. In spite of being so richly endowed with extraordinary graces, Sr. Maria Faustina knew that they do not in fact constitute sanctity. In her Diary she wrote:

"Neither graces, nor revelations, nor raptures, nor gifts granted to a soul make it perfect, but rather the intimate union of the soul with God. These gifts are merely ornaments of the soul, but constitute neither its essence nor its perfection. My sanctity and perfection consist in the close union of my will with the will of God."

Divine Mercy Sunday also reminds us of how the Risen Jesus showed us that he was not a ghost by eating a fish, allowing his apostles to touch him and by him showing his disciples his wounds. These wounds now become superscars and like red diamonds they bedazzle both the disciples and us with the beauty of his mercy.

Indeed the Gospel of Divine Mercy Sunday shows also the significance of the resurrection for all the saints. It will mean that they too will have the endowments of the glorified body based upon the characteristics of Christ’s own resurrected body and these characteristics or qualities are:

1.    Identity – Essentially, this means that the very same body that falls in death will rise to be glorified.

2.    Integrity – We will possess all of the parts of our body in its perfection and there will no longer be the blind, the deaf, the dumb, the crippled, the amputee or the mentally disabled.

3.    Quality – What about age? Our bodies will be youthful and will retain our original sex.

4.    Clarity – The glory of our souls will be visible in our bodies.

5.    Agility – We will have complete freedom of movement where nothing will hinder us even in our speed.

6.    Subtlety – Our bodies will be free from the things that restrain them now.

7.    Impassability - We will be immune from death and pain.

Unfortunately, the quality of the general resurrection of the saints seems to be irrelevant to many today, indeed, rarely do priests today ever preach about the qualities of the Glorified and Resurrected bodies. As a result, heaven has become even more difficult to conceive, imagine or believe in.

However, taking a cue from the scholastics, what if all the saints in heaven were to show forth in bodily form their personal configurations to Christ’s cross? Jesus says, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (Mark 8:34) and so there is no resurrection without the cross. Would it not be fitting that all would somehow display their unique cross as signs of the victory that Christ’s paschal mystery has accomplished in them. Such scars belong to the glory of heaven and it can be truly envisioned that when we appear before Our Risen Lord he will show us his scars that he aquired for love of us and ask us to show the scars we acquired for love of Him!

Clearly, the resurrection of the Blessed and the resurrection of the Damned is determined by freely chosing either obedience or disobedience to the moral law and the acceptance or rejection of living in a state of grace [John 3:4-6]. The foretaste of this future and eschatological state is presently made visible by how we receive the Eucharist which is given to us now so as to transfigure our bodies, hearts, minds and souls into the likeness of the heart, mind, body and soul of the Risen Lord.

However, many false shepherds seemingly have no problem administering Holy Communion to people who are in a public state of sin and they seem to refuse to call such souls to repentence. Many of these false shepherds call this being merciful!

In contrast to such Shepherds, tying confession, contrition and conversion together is a common theme for Cardinal Sarah. During an interview in 2015, he put it quite bluntly: "If there's no repentance, there's no mercy."

Asked about such unrepentant sinners deciding to receive Holy Communion, Sarah, in reference to St. Paul's 1 Corinthians 11:27-29,  responded: "If he does so knowingly, and does it of his own will, he eats unto his own condemnation."

In 2015, Sarah wrote his book ‘God or Nothing’ in which he speaks of divine mercy that can only be received by those who first let go of their sins:

Many of the faithful rejoice to hear talk about divine mercy, and they hope that the radical demands of the gospel can be relaxed even for the benefit of those who by their lives have chosen to break away from the crucified love of Jesus. They think that because of the Lord's infinite goodness everything is possible, while at the same time deciding to change nothing in their lives. Many expect, as something normal, that God should pour out his mercy on them while they remain in sin.

Today, we have a vision of God as Master and Tyrant in Islam and a vision of God among some leaders in the Church of God as a Teddy Bear. The roots of both is a theological nominalism: the will of God is so absolute and all powerful it trumps both reason and morality!

Today a new theological Nominalism is abroad espoused by some Catholic clergy and laity: this time it is God’s mercy that is so absolute that it trumps reason, sin and morality. Thus, such clergy and laity say that we are all going to heaven and no one goes to hell no matter what we believe, choose or do! This heresy denies human free will, and thus makes human beings into robots and makes God a teddy bear! If we are all going to heaven no matter what then why be good, why be honest or why live a just and ordered life?

However, in Catholic doctrine Mercy, Truth and the Good are interconnected for God is that which infinitely, eternally and perfectly IS and so God cannot contradict himself, neither can God deceive nor be deceived nor can God’s will be evil or will evil.

Indeed, God made us in his own image and so we are made to seek truth, goodness and beauty by use of our intellect and will which reflects analogously both the very nature of God as Being perfectly ordered, true, good and beautiful and the Godhead as three divine persons possessing infinitely and eternally perfectly both intellect and will.

So, the proper and orthodox doctrine about divine Mercy presupposes repentance from sin which in turn presupposes that one knows the truth that one is a sinner which in turn presupposes one knows right from wrong and does not call good evil and evil good.

But what happens when shepherds proclaim confusion on moral matters and present an irrational proclamation of mercy without repentance and without the objective order of truth or the moral law? This is not true or real mercy it is the sin of presumption; presuming that because God is merciful that sin does not really matter, nor does truth or justice. Such is the heresy taught by wolves in shepherds clothing who with smiles and niceness lead people into hell by telling them that one can take communion without confessing grave or mortal sins.

So what does the image of the Divine Mercy reveal to us?

The image of the Divine Mercy is apposite in out time when we have confusion about Mercy in the Catholiuc Church and we have an irrational idea of God arising in the Middle East that reason and morality cannot limit a human beings decision to follow the will of God as God may will a human being to do evil and to believe in a contradiction!

The Divine Mercy image is a depiction of Jesus based on a vision that St. Faustina had in 1931. There have been a number of paintings made of this image. The original, though not the most popular one today, is shown in our mural. A basic explanation of the image is the following:

• Jesus is shown in most versions as raising his right hand in blessing, and pointing with his left hand on his chest from which flow forth two rays: one red and one white (translucent).

• The depictions often contains the message "Jesus, I trust in You!" (Polish: Jezu ufam Tobie).

• The rays streaming out have symbolic meaning: red for the blood of Jesus (which is the Life of Souls), and pale for the water (which justify souls) (from Diary - 299).

• The whole image is symbolic of charity, forgiveness and love of God, referred to as the "Fountain of Mercy".

According to the diary of St Faustina, the image is based on her 1931 vision of Jesus. Our Lord strongly speaks about this to Saint Faustina:

‘I demand from you deeds of mercy which are to arise out of love for me. You are to show mercy to your neighbours always and everywhere. You must not shrink from this or try to excuse yourself from it’ (Diary, 742).

How do we "radiate" God's mercy to others?

We do so by our actions, our words, and our prayers. "In these three degrees," he tells Sister Faustina, "is contained the fullness of mercy" (Diary 742).

We have all been called to this threefold practice of mercy – by actions, words and prayer- but we are not all called in the same way. We need to ask the Lord, who understands our individual personalities and our respective situations, to help us recognize the various ways we can each show His mercy in our daily lives.

Our Lord spoke these words to St Faustina:

"[Let] the greatest sinners place their trust in My mercy. They have the right before others to trust in the abyss of My mercy. My daughter, write about My mercy towards tormented souls. Souls that make an appeal to My mercy delight Me. To such souls I grant even more graces than they ask. I cannot punish even the greatest sinner if he makes an appeal to My compassion, but on the contrary, I justify him in My unfathomable and inscrutable mercy.

Write: before I come as a just Judge, I first open wide the door of My mercy. He who refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice.