Our People

Divine Mercy Sunday

By Most Rev. Julian Porteous
Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney
15/4/2007

In 1980, at the very beginnings of his pontificate, Pope John Paul II, wrote an encyclical, Dives in Miseriocordia, Rich in Mercy. Why did this theme occupy his mind as he began his mission and ministry as Pope. We can only surmise. Having had the chance to visit the convent of St Faustina in Cracow, I feel her influence in the Pope’s thoughts.

This theme of divine mercy was revealed to this simple and humble sister from 1931, in years when her homeland Poland enjoyed relative freedom as it was constituted as a nation following World War I. But the self determination and freedom would last but a few years. As the young sister lay dying at the age of 33 already the storm clouds were gathering over Europe and the continent would be thrown into another - and worse - cataclysmic war. The Polish people would experience the horror of Nazism and then be subjected to the deadening control of Communism.

With a consciousness of what was to befall the Polish people the message of the great mercy of God and offering the simple prayer – Jesus I trust in you – appears as a special grace given to the Polish people for their dark times ahead.

Pope John Paul was thoroughly a son of Poland and had personal interest in the life and message of St Faustina, and would raise her to sainthood.

The revelations given to St Faustina present nothing new, but merely put into relief a special dimension of the message of God to us. Let us briefly follow the revelation of Sacred Scripture and the thoughts of our blessed Holy Father, Pope John Paul II.

The Scriptures offer a rich source of reflection on the mercy of God. The Old Testament knew this truth. Moses describes God as “slow to anger and abounding in mercy” (Ex 34,6). The Psalms, like Ps 102 that is our response today, declare this same truth: “the Lord is kind and merciful”. The Letter to the Ephesians declares that God, in his plan spanning all time for the redemption of mankind, is “rich in mercy”.

Christ, the Incarnate Son of God, is the great revelation of this mercy. Christ himself embodies this mercy. The Pope expresses it thus:

... in Christ and through Christ, God also becomes especially visible in His mercy; that is to say, there is emphasized that attribute of the divinity which the Old Testament, using various concepts and terms, already defined as "mercy." Christ confers on the whole of the Old Testament tradition about God's mercy a definitive meaning. Not only does He speak of it and explain it by the use of comparisons and parables, but above all He Himself makes it incarnate and personifies it. He Himself, in a certain sense, is mercy.

The words, the actions of the Lord Jesus are eloquent testimony to the depths of the mercy of God. As a poor widow accompanies her only son to burial, the Lord stops the bearers and raises the son back to life and gives him to his mother. That action was purely an act of mercy.

The woman caught in adultery about to be stoned is saved by the intervention of the Lord – “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone”. The Scriptures give example after example. The compassion and kindness of the heart of Jesus is so clearly evident.

One parable of the Lord stands out above all others, and is one of the most loved of all the parables of the Lord, that of the Prodigal Son, or better the Parable of the Merciful Father. All Chapter 15 of St Luke’s Gospel is devoted to the theme of mercy. There are three parables, the lost coin, the lost sheep and the greatest of them, the lost son.

In his reflection on this parable the Pope draws attention to the character of the father.

The conduct of the father in the parable and his whole behavior, which manifests his internal attitude ... The father of the prodigal son is faithful to his fatherhood, faithful to the love that he had always lavished on his son. This fidelity is expressed in the parable not only by his immediate readiness to welcome him home when he returns after having squandered his inheritance; it is expressed even more fully by that joy, that merrymaking for the squanderer after his return, merrymaking which is so generous that it provokes the opposition and hatred of the elder brother, who had never gone far away from his father and had never abandoned the home.

The description given in the story of the father running to greet his son, his heart full of compassion is surely one of the most wonderful revelations of the heart of God.  The parable is indeed an insight that only the Son of God himself could give as to the nature of the love that flows in His Father’s heart. The Son reveals to us what the Father is like.

The mercy of God finds its final expression in the passion and death of Christ. The Father asks the Son to embrace suffering and death for the sake of the redemption of us all. The Pope says,

In the passion and death of Christ - in the fact that the Father did not spare His own Son, but "for our sake made him sin" - absolute justice is expressed, for Christ undergoes the passion and cross because of the sins of humanity.

Here surely the mercy of God finds definitive expression. The Pope’s reflection once again puts it thus:

The cross on Calvary, the cross upon which Christ conducts His final dialogue with the Father, emerges from the very heart of the love that man, created in the image and likeness of God, has been given as a gift, according to God's eternal plan. God, as Christ has revealed Him, does not merely remain closely linked with the world as the Creator and the ultimate source of existence. He is also Father: He is linked to man, whom He called to existence in the visible world, by a bond still more intimate than that of creation. It is love which not only creates the good but also grants participation in the very life of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For he who loves desires to give himself.

For those of us who have seen the Mel Gibson film, The Passion of the Christ, the willingness of Christ to accept and indeed to embrace suffering as an expiation for our sins comes graphically to mind. We cannot escape the profound truth: Christ did this for me, such did he love, such does he enter into the mercy of God for humanity.

As the Lord cries out from the cross, “Father, forgive them, they do not know what they are doing”. We see revealed the depths of mercy in the heart of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for his sheep.

Today, as we gather on this Divine Mercy Sunday let us quietly in our hearts contemplate the mercy of God.

St Faustina would encourage us today as we contemplate the depths of the mercy of God to learn to entrust oneself to God in these simple words - “Jesus, I trust in you”.