Divine Mercy
(Meditating on the diary of St Faustina in the heart of the Church)
As we reflect together today on the Mercy of Our Lord, we will be assisted by the Diary of St Faustina, certainly, but also by the Holy Scriptures and the wisdom of the Church in Her Liturgy and the writings of Her Saints. All these sources go together, for you will not find any new Divine Revelation in the Diary – nothing that is different to teachings of the Church and Her Saints. It is very important to keep all these together. We progress from the popular leaflets to the Diary itself, read in the light of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. The Church always asks us to maintain a unity between our devotional prayers and the Sacred Liturgy, the former must be ordered to the latter, giving precedence to the Liturgy. Furthermore, Dom Prosper Guéranger, founder of Solesmes, said that the social dimension of the Liturgy, praying the Liturgy together as the People of God, ‘is the basis of all Divine Worship’.
Nevertheless, we can accept, in faith, the promises given by Our Lord through private revelations, those authorized by the Church. In the Diary (no. 300) Our Lord says that ‘whoever approaches the Fount of Life on this day will be granted remission of sins and punishment.’ Further, that ‘mankind will not have peace until it turns with trust to my Mercy.’ How much Our Lord is hurt by our distrust in Him.
How do we come to Him with trust? Firstly, we must have faith. If we have no faith, then we cannot know Him to trust in Him. We must therefore pray for the gift of faith – to have a strong and fervent faith. We are reminded of this today in our Gospel when Jesus said to St Thomas ‘Do not be faithless but believing’ We cannot have any doubt with the certitude of faith. We must have hope, which leads us forward on our spiritual journey knowing that He abides with us. And most of all we must have charity, which underlines faith, hope and indeed all of the virtues. Everything falls apart if we allow ourselves to grow cold in our love. This is what St Paul tells us in his first letter to the Corinthians:
1 Corinthians 13:1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;
5 it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
6 it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
9 For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;
10 but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.
11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.
13 So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
The Scriptures too are filled with accounts of the Mercy of Our Lord. Recall the remarkable episode of the Good Thief crucified with Our Lord on Calvary, speaking to the other thief:
“Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?
41 And we indeed justly; for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.”
42 And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
43 And Jesus said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luk 23:40-43 )
Think about it. Meditate upon it. A thief wins Heaven at his very last moment on earth! Believe in the Mercy of God with great trust.
Our Lord told St Faustina (no. 1602): ‘When you go to confession, to this fountain of My Mercy, the Blood and Water which came forth from My Heart always flows down upon your soul and ennobles it. Every time you go to confession, immerse yourself entirely in My Mercy, with great trust, so that I may pour the bounty of My Grace upon your soul … I am only hidden by the priest, but I myself act in your soul … The torrents of Grace inundate humble souls.’
Never despair of God’s Mercy for us. Even the greatest sinner ever can receive the Mercy of God. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is all-embracing because it is Divinely Infinite as well as human. We must repent of our sins and come to confession with true contrition of heart. On speaking of the Mercy of God, St Bernard refers us to Ps 37:
3 Trust in the LORD, and do good; so you will dwell in the land, and enjoy security.
4 Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act.
6 He will bring forth your vindication as the light, and your right as the noonday.
7 Be still before the LORD, and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over him who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!
(Ps 37:3-7)
St Bernard explains that ‘True, sorrow for sin is a necessity, yet it should not be continuous. It must sometimes give place to the more cheering thoughts of the Divine Goodness (or Kindness or Mercy), lest otherwise the heart, frozen hard by excessive sadness, should fall a victim of despair.’ (Commentary on the Song of Songs, Sermon XI). Therefore, take delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.
A heart that is frozen by despair cannot love, it cannot trust in Jesus. He wants hearts that our meek, lowly, like His own, not frozen from fear or pride.
To trust in Jesus means to have the certitude of Faith. A faith that is not certain is not faith at all. The certitude of our Faith leads to a complete trust in the Mercy of Jesus. And the more you trust, the more you receive (1578). Remember too the title of the Diary of St Faustina; ‘Divine Mercy in my soul.’ We receive God’s mercy into the very depths of our being, But it is not simply to dwell there. When a soul approaches Our Lord with trust, He says to St Faustina (no. 1074) ‘I will fill it with such an abundance of graces that it cannot contain them within itself, but radiates them to other souls.” Recall the parable of the unforgiving servant from the Gospel of St Matthew, where Our Lord said to him:
`You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you besought me;
33 and should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’
34 And in anger his lord delivered him to the jailers, till he should pay all his debt.
35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”
(Mat 18:32-35)
The servant simply had no trust in the Lord. We must forgive, always, ‘seventy times seven’ Our Lord told St Peter – and that means always.
The Collect prayer of the Mass for today is:
‘God of everlasting mercy,
who in the very recurrence of the paschal feast
kindle the faith of the people you have made your own,
increase, we pray, the grace you have bestowed,
that all may grasp and rightly understand
in what font they have been washed,
by whose Spirit they have been reborn,
by whose Blood they have been redeemed.’
Several times in the Diary there are references to the Blood and Water which gushed forth from the pierced side of Jesus (no.s 185, 186, 309). This is precisely the prayer at the end of the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, dictated to St Faustina by Our Lord: ‘O Blood and Water, which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fount of Mercy for us, I trust in You’ (no. 187). Further Our Lord said to her ‘I desire that you know more profoundly the love that burns in My Heart for souls, and you will understand this when you meditate upon My Passion … When you say this prayer with a contrite heart and with faith on behalf of some sinner, I will give him the grace of conversion’ (no. 186).
Each evening during the Easter Season at the end of Compline we sing the Marian Hymn, the ‘Regina Coeli’ (Queen of Heaven). We share in her joys when we turn to her as her children, with trust:
Queen of Heaven
V. Queen of Heaven, rejoice, alleluia.
R. For He whom you did merit to bear, alleluia.
V. Has risen, as he said, alleluia.
R. Pray for us to God, alleluia.
V. Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary, alleluia.
R. For the Lord has truly risen, alleluia.
Let us pray. O God, who gave joy to the world through the resurrection of Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, grant we beseech Thee, that through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, His Mother, we may obtain the joys of everlasting life. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.