Fr. JC Maximilian

“His Mercy endures forever.” In case you didn’t get it, this refrain is repeated three times in the first stanza of today’s Responsorial Psalm. Actually, if you look at the complete text of Psalm 118, which is today’s psalm, the phrase “His Mercy endures forever,” is repeated four times. Obviously for the Psalmist it was very important that people knew that God’s mercy endures forever. How fitting that this emphasis on the mercy of God is made in today’s Responsorial Psalm, for the Second Sunday in the Octave of Easter is also known throughout the Church as Divine Mercy Sunday.

Quite simply, Divine Mercy is what we call God’s love when it encounters sin. Sin builds up a barrier that keeps us from being one with God; that keeps us from fully participating in the Divine Life as a child of God. Divine Mercy is God’s work to remove the barrier of sin that impedes us from living fully in God who is Love. The definitive act of God’s Mercy is the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God, which conquers sin and its consequence, death, and restores us to the life of Sanctifying Grace.

This teaching concerning Divine Mercy is nothing new. As we see from today’s Responsorial Psalm, which was written hundreds of years before the birth of Christ Jesus, God had revealed His profound mercy to the Chosen People. However, we can be very forgetful people. Therefore, in His great, God frequently raises up an instrument to remind us of the Truth of His love. One such instrument of God was St. Maria Faustina Kowalska, known throughout the world today as the “Apostle of the Divine Mercy,” and recognized as one of the outstanding mystics of the Church.

She was born in 1905 in a small village in the heart of Poland; the third of ten children of a poor, though pious, family. As a child she first felt the call of God deep in her soul, calling her to embrace the religious life. In 1925 she entered the cloister of the Congregation of Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in Warsaw. She died thirteen years later, a young woman at age 33, after suffering much physically. However, it was the mystical experiences of Jesus speaking to her, recorded in her diary, which caused this simple, contemplative nun to become the great witness of the Divine Mercy to the world. As part of her legacy she has given the Church both the well-known image of Divine Mercy, and the Divine Mercy Chaplet.

Probably the most distinctive feature of the Divine Mercy image is the two set of rays, one red and the other white, emanating from the from the heart of Jesus. What do these rays mean? I will let St. Faustina explain them using the words she received from the Lord in prayer:

“The two rays denote Blood and Water. The pale ray stands for the Water which makes souls righteous. The red ray stands for the Blood which is the life of souls . . .

“These two rays issued forth from the very depths of My tender mercy when My agonized heart was opened by a lance on the Cross.

“These rays shield souls from the wrath of My Father. Happy is the one who will dwell in their shelter, for the just hand of God shall not lay hold of him. I desire that the first Sunday after Easter be the Feast of Mercy” (Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska #299).

In another place the Lord says to St. Faustina, “I desire that this image be displayed in public on the first Sunday after Easter. That Sunday is the Feast of Mercy. Through the Word Incarnate, I make known the bottomless depth of My mercy” (Diary #88).

Of course the most perfect way in which the Word of God is Incarnate, is in the person of Jesus. In the womb of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, the Second Divine Person of the Most Holy Trinity, emptied Himself and took on the form of a slave, and united to His Divine Personhood our human nature. As the Incarnate Word, Jesus revealed the Truth of Divine Love to us, and revealed how we are suppose to respond to the love God offers each of us. The infinite God took on the limits of our human flesh so that we might know Him intimately, and so that He could suffer and die for us, thus saving us from sin and death.

The Incarnate Word, even after Ascending into Heaven, continues to remain with us today. Of course He remains with us in the Most Holy Eucharist, represented by the red rays emanating from the heart of Jesus in the Divine Mercy image. The Eucharist is the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ (and I spoke about this in my first homily of this 40-Hour Devotion on Friday night). However the Incarnate Word is present in the world in another way, namely in His Mystical Body, which we call the Church.

As has already been noted, the white rays emanating from the heart of Jesus in the Divine Mercy image represents the water that flowed from the pierced side of Christ as He hung on the Cross. St. Faustina noted that this is the water that makes souls righteous. The word “righteous” comes from a Hebrew word that means “to be in a correct relationship with the Lord; to be declared just and innocent before God.” Only the sacrifice of Jesus makes us righteous before God, and the means by which He incorporates us into His righteousness is through the waters of Baptism.

We all know that by Baptism the stain of Original Sin is washed away, as is all personal sin. However, baptism also “makes us members of the Body of Christ” and “incorporates us into the Church” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1267). So what is the Church?

Msgr. Luigi Giussani, a theologian and founder of the movement Communion and Liberation, identified three constituent factors of the Church. First the Church is a community. In today’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles we hear, “The community of believers was of one heart and mind, …” This community, however, is unlike any other community because, as Msgr. Giussani notes in his second factor, it is comprised of people who are aware that what brings them together is determined by the gift of the Holy Spirit. In today’s Gospel reading we hear of Jesus giving His disciples this Gift when He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Finally, the Holy Spirit gives to the Church a new kind of life; a life of love, both of God and of neighbor. It is in this way that the Word of God remains Incarnate, manifesting the will of God through His creation.

As Jesus, who is sinless, embraced the sinners who came to Him, and offered them the Divine Mercy, so too must the Mystical Body of Christ embrace sinners and pour out Divine Mercy. “Having become a member of the Church, the person baptized belongs no longer to himself, but to him who died and rose for us. From now on, he is called to be subject to others, to serve them in the communion of the Church, and to ‘obey and submit’ to the Church’s leaders” (CCC #1269). This is often very difficult because we become so focused on the “mud,” the sin and limits of the human beings, that we fail to keep our eyes on the “gold,” the grace of redemption and the gift of divine life won for us by Jesus’ Passion, Death and Resurrection. We must humbly confess the sinfulness that we encounter in ourselves, our neighbors, the world, and even in the Church, however we must not become obsessed by it. In recognizing the sinfulness we must be brought to see the Divine Mercy. Then, having encountered the Divine Mercy in our lives, we must go out and be witnesses of Divine Mercy to the world, so often lost in sin.

This is the purpose of Divine Mercy Sunday: to commit ourselves to not only being open to the gift of Divine Mercy in our lives, but to proclaim the Divine Mercy to all we meet by our words and deeds. As the Lord said to St. Faustina, “This Feast emerged from the very depths of My mercy, and it is confirmed in the vast depths of My tender mercies. Every soul believing and trusting in My mercy will obtain it” (Diary #420).

JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU!

I was asked to give the homily for the start and end of a Forty-Hours Devotion at Divine Mercy Parish in Trenton. As I type this I realized that I was preaching the start and end of the first Forty-Hour Devotion at that parish; last July 1, three parishes — Holy Cross, St. Stanislaus and Ss. Peter & Paul — were merged into the new Divine Mercy Parish. The pastor is my spiritual director, and when he was the pastor of the three named parishes (yes, he was pastor of three parishes at once, before they were suppressed as three individual parishes to create the new one) he help an annual Forty-Hours devotion around the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in September, and I have tried to make the closing Mass for that the last several years. He is what I said last night, then I need to write my homily for this weekend.

Friday in the Octave of Easter
Start of the Forty Hours Devotion
at Divine Mercy Parish, Trenton
April 21, 2006
Fr. John C. Garrett

What do we mean by Divine Mercy? I know that for the past week, as you have been participating in this Divine Mercy Novena, you have been learning about this very thing. I would like to just add a few of my own thoughts. St. John, in his first epistle, states the simple truth about God when he says, “God is Love” (1 John 4:16). Love is not merely what God DOES, it is the entire BEING of God. Every other characteristic that we can apply to God – such as He is kind, He is just, etc. – must be just one form of manifesting that God is Love. So what is Divine Mercy? Simply put, Divine Mercy is God’s love encountering sin. Divine Mercy is God trying to dispel the misery that comes as a consequence of our sins. Our sins separate us from God, so in His mercy God offers to remove the defects that keep us from living His life to the full, so that we can live in the freedom of a child of God. Of course, since God is love, He does not force His gifts of love upon us – we must respond to God’s love, experienced in our sinfulness as Divine Mercy, by lovingly accepting God into our lives.

When I was growing up, I would often visit my grandma and grandpa Foley, and one prominent image in their dining room was a framed print of the Divine Mercy image. One of the mysteries of my grandfather, who was very English/Irish, was that he had a devotion to the Divine Mercy image and Sr. Faustina. This was before the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, who really did so much to make this devotion more widely known outside of Poland. How and why my grandfather developed his devotion to the Divine Mercy image I never found out, but it was a part of my childhood long before I understood what it was all about.

Probably the most distinctive feature of the Divine Mercy image is the two set of rays, one red and the other white, emanating from the from the heart of Jesus. What do these rays mean? I will let St. Faustina explain them using the words she received from the Lord in prayer:

“The two rays denote Blood and Water. The pale ray stands for the Water which makes souls righteous. The red ray stands for the Blood which is the life of souls . . .

“These two rays issued forth from the very depths of My tender mercy when My agonized heart was opened by a lance on the Cross.

“These rays shield souls from the wrath of My Father. Happy is the one who will dwell in their shelter, for the just hand of God shall not lay hold of him. (#299, Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska).

Blood and water. Two profound realities for us Catholics, for they are connected with two of our sacraments; the Eucharist and Baptism. Since you are going to be hearing from me twice during this Forty Hour Devotion, I would like to focus my talks on the two rays pouring out from the Heart of Jesus; on the Eucharist and on Baptism.

In tonight’s Gospel reading we hear the Risen Jesus ask the Apostles, who had been fishing all night, if they have “caught anything to eat?” Then Jesus provides them with food to eat. In light of this reading, and since we beginning a 40-Hours Devotion, I would like to begin with focusing on the red ray in the Divine Mercy image, which represents the Eucharist.

“The Sacrament of the Eucharist is key to the devotion of The Divine Mercy. The Eucharist is so central to the life of Sister Faustina that most of the pages of her Diary have some reference to it” (Rev. George Kosicki, Tell My Priests, p. 35). This is most fitting, for the Second Vatican Council taught in the document, Lumen Gentium, the Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life” (#11). So many volumes have been written concerning the Most Blessed Sacrament that it would not be possible to discuss it all in a single homily. I would like to focus on several of the Fruits of Holy Communion (see Catechism of the Catholic Church #1391-1401).

The principal fruit of receiving the Eucharist is an intimate union, a true oneness, with Jesus. St. Faustina experienced this oneness with Christ Jesus most profoundly. Once she had a vision of the Sacred Host and heard the voice of Jesus say to her, “In the Host is your power; It will defend you” (#616, Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska). The Eucharist preserves, increases and renews the life of grace that we receive in Baptism. Again St. Faustina speaks to us, “One thing alone sustains me, and this is Holy Communion. From it I draw my strength; in it is all my comfort” (#1037, Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska).

The Eucharist also separates us from sin. During the consecration, the priest repeats the words of Jesus, who said at the Last Supper after taking the cup of wine and declaring it His most Precious Blood, which is “shed for the many for the forgiveness of sins.” This is the very definition of Divine Mercy I gave at the start of this homily; that Divine Mercy is God’s love as it encounters sin, and removes the defects of sin that keep us from being one with God.

“The Eucharist strengthens our charity, which tends to be weakened in daily life; and this living charity wipes away venial sins. By giving himself to us Christ revives our love and enables us to break our disordered attachments to creatures and root ourselves in him” (CCC #1394). The Eucharist draws us into an ever-deeper relationship with Christ Jesus, sharing in His life, which makes it more difficult to commit mortal sin.

Most of what we have been discussing is specifically speaking about the reception of the Eucharist in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. However, as we begin tonight the celebration of 40-Hours, it is important to recognize the relationship of Eucharistic Adoration to the Mass. In a letter to a bishop in Belgium on the 750th Anniversary of the first celebration of the feast of Corpus Christ, two years ago, Pope John Paul II noted that Eucharistic Adoration extends Holy Communion in a lasting way, “and prepares us to participate more fully in the celebration of the Eucharistic mystery” (USCCB, Committee on the Liturgy, Thirty-One Questions on Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, October 2004, p. 2). In Holy Communion and Worship of the Eucharist Outside of Mass (1973), three purposes of Eucharistic exposition are listed. First, Adoration of the Eucharist, exposed on the Altar, clearly acknowledges Christ’s marvelous presence in the sacrament. Secondly, this acknowledgement should lead us to a fuller participation in the celebration of the Eucharist, which should culminate in reception of Holy Communion. Finally Adoration fosters the worship that is due to Christ in spirit and truth.

As we begin this 40-Hour devotion, let us in our contemplation of the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, allow the Blood of Christ pour over us. Let us permit the red rays that we see emanating from the heart of Jesus in the Divine Mercy image enlighten our souls so that we admit our faults, so that we receive the God’s mercy in our lives. Let us allow Our Risen Lord to feed us with the Bread of Life, so that nourished by His Body and Blood, we can be witnesses to His infinite love, so often manifested as His Divine Mercy.