“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” (1 Peter 1:3)

The major theme for this Divine Mercy Sunday focuses on the infinite mercy of God towards us sinners, and invites us to repent our sins, correct our lives to receive God’s compassionate mercy for our salvation.

 

Divine Mercy Sunday is one of the Church’s great feasts celebrated on the Sunday after Easter. The opening prayer of today’s Mass addresses the Father as "God of everlasting Mercy."

Today’s celebration is based on our devotion to God’s Divine Mercy that Saint Faustina Kowalska, a Polish sister from the congregation of the sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, reported in her diary as part of her encounter with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and is associated with the Lord’s special promises and the Church’s indulgences. The Lord informs St. Faustina that if today the soul goes to make the sacrament of confession and receives the Holy communion, that person will obtain God’s forgiveness of all his sins and God’s divine mercy, which means that person would go immediately after death to heaven without suffering in purgatory.

Additionally, the Church will grant the plenary indulgence, which is a complete remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and all of the saints to those who participate in this devotion.

 

God does not want us holding a relationship of Transaction but Transformation. Therefore, Dynamic Christian disciples are those who (1) BELIEVE, (2) GROW, (3) SERVE, (4) LOVE and (5) LEAD others to Jesus. Today’s topic invites us to appreciate, obtain and practice the divine mercy that Jesus Christ gained for us, to imitate and follow him more closely, to repent our sins, to exercise our Christian stewardship, to use our time, treasure, and talents to love God above all and to love our neighbors as ourselves, participating in the works of mercy, to accomplish God’s will in our lives to glorify God.

 

How can we receive and practice divine mercy, the corporal and spiritual works of mercy?

 

Wishing everyone a very happy and blessed Easter Season.