“Divine Mercy” by Brian Flanagan, Fiat Ventures
Divine Mercy Sunday
This past summer, I had the opportunity to go to World Youth Day in Poland. We saw beautiful Churches, we got to have several events with Pope Francis and a few million of our closest friends, and I also had McDonalds more times than I’ve had it in the past five years (well what do you expect, it was right next to our hotel and we came back every night starving from the long day of awesome activities!)
Poland was the home of St. John Paul the Second, St. Maximilian Kolbe, and St. Faustina Kowalska. The first was a great pope who we all know pretty well. The second was a priest who sacrificed his life for another prisoner at the concentration camp at Auschwitz under the Nazis in World War II. But the third, I didn’t know much about before this trip. She was a humble nun known for her mystical prayer experiences with Jesus, one of the fruits of which is called this concept of “Divine Mercy”.
The Second Sunday of Easter is known as Divine Mercy Sunday. Up until this trip, for me “Divine Mercy” was a phrase of Catholic lingo that I’ve heard a million times, but I never really gave it much thought. I mean God’s mercy is pretty central to our faith right? And we don’t have a separate feast day for Divine Love or Divine Providence. So what’s the big deal?
There are people a lot smarter than me who could tell you all about St. Faustina and her Diary and the things that she heard from Jesus in these prayer experiences. I heard excellent talks on this trip from Cardinal O’Malley, Cardinal Dolan, Pope Francis himself, and plenty of priests, sisters, and laypeople. But what drove home this concept of “Divine Mercy” for me most was a short witness I heard from a young woman from the Middle East whose life has been completely upended by ISIS.
She talked about several family members who were killed and how they had lost everything because of their Christian faith. And then she talked about what Divine Mercy means for her. The Divine Mercy Chaplet (the prayer associated with this devotion that is prayed on Rosary beads) has a line that goes, “For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us, and on the whole world.” Sounds like a nice pious prayer. She told us that when she prays it, she likes to swap out the word “us” for an intention. For example, “For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on my family, and on the whole world.” But then she talked about one time when she was praying the Chaplet in the midst of her tremendous suffering, and she found herself praying, “For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on ISIS, and on the whole world.” And that really changed her from the inside out.
That was the line that really blew me away. To hear a person who has been living through all of this really taking the call to love our enemies to heart?! It was amazing. And that’s what Divine Mercy is all about. It’s not just remembering that God has mercy on those who are decent folks and you’d sort of think are deserving of his love and mercy anyway. It’s about remembering that God has mercy even on those who are doing unspeakable things. There is no sin too big for God’s mercy. And if God can have mercy on them, we should never hesitate to run to him and ask for his mercy on us. And we can learn a thing or two from that young woman about praying for those who give us a hard time or cause us suffering too.
So this Divine Mercy Sunday, think of somebody you’d rather not pray for. Someone who isn’t your favorite person. “Have mercy on _____, and on the whole world.” And see if some of God’s Divine Mercy doesn’t spill out into your own heart toward that person. St. Faustina, pray for us!
And in case you were wondering, we had some scrumptious pierogis on the trip too, not just fries from Mickey D’s.