Group offers special devotion to St. Faustina,
‘Divine Mercy Sunday’
By David Myers
They come together each Friday afternoon, a small group of Catholics devoted to what one
member says is one of the best kept secrets in the Church.
“You ask nine out of 10 people about Divine
Mercy Sunday, and they won’t know,” said
Seated at the Cathedral of Our Lady of
Guadalupe each Friday at 5:30 p.m., Rosaries in hand, the group honors and
celebrates the “Divine Mercy” of Jesus Christ, as revealed more than 75 years
ago by a young Polish girl. The
devotion culminates with Divine Mercy Sunday, the first Sunday after Easter,
the day on which it is said that if a person goes to confession and Mass, and
conducts acts of mercy, mercy will be shown him -- all sins will be forgiven,
and, George stresses, all punishment for past sins abated.
“I think a lot of
Catholics don’t understand the basics of venial sin, mortal sin, and punishment
of sin,” George said. “If we don’t make up for our sins here on earth, that’s
what Purgatory is for.”
The devotion, George explained, centers
around the story of a peasant girl, Helen Kowalska,
who, nearly a century ago first began receiving revelations from God. The
revelations continued for several years, when she witnessed her most famous
vision, that of Christ dressed in white, one hand raised in blessing, the other
on his breast, out of which emanated two beams of light, one white and one red.
“The white,” George
said as he held a diary written by Faustina,
“represents the baptismal waters -- a cleansing, and the red represents blood.”
Upon seeing the vision, Faustina
received the revelation that she was to have someone paint the image she
observed, with the inscription, “Jesus, I trust in you.”
“She didn’t paint it,” George explained.
“She was told to find somebody to paint it. There are different renditions. Two
or three painted the image as she saw it, but she kept thinking it wasn’t quite
right.”
George said that when Faustina
continued to express her dissatisfaction with the paintings, Jesus imparted to
her that the importance of the depiction wasn’t in the brush, but in the “mercy
that is shown.”
The finished image, a large copy of which
stands in George’s
Faustina
had a completed painting blessed on the first Sunday after Easter, hence
“Divine Mercy Sunday.” It is a large print of this image that stands before
George and the rest of the group as they pray a special chaplet of the Rosary
every Friday, with a special devotion on Divine Mercy Sunday. George, a former
psychology teacher, isn’t always able to make the Friday gatherings, but said
he prays the chaplet of the Rosary each day.
The group will be gathering at 3 p.m. at
Sacred Heart Cathedral on Sunday, April 15, for a litany of the Stations of the
Cross, veneration of the image, a rosary and recitation of the chaplet.
In 1925, Faustina
entered the
Her 600-page diary, entitled in English,
“Divine Mercy in My Soul,” highlights the revelations the young Faustina received from God. At one time considered heresy,
Pope John Paul II commissioned a leading author to study the diary. After
nearly 15 years of investigation, the author maintained that “nobody but Jesus
could have expressed himself the way he did,” George explained. “It was that
profound.”
In
her diary, St. Faustina relates that Jesus told her
that Divine Mercy Sunday would be a very special day when “all the divine
floodgates through which graces flow are opened.” Jesus went on to tell her
that “The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion shall
obtain the complete forgiveness of sins and punishment. … I want to grant a
complete pardon to the souls that will go to Confession and receive Holy
Communion on the Feast of My Mercy.”
During St. Faustina’s canonization, Pope John Paul II said, “It is
important that we accept in its entirety the message that comes to us from
God’s Word on this second Sunday of Easter. From now on, throughout the whole
Church, this day will take the name of ‘Divine Mercy Sunday.’”