Greetings of peace from our Lord’s Divine Mercy!
We continue to celebrate the richness and depth of Easter joy as we meditate this weekend on the Lord’s Divine Mercy. The resurrection of Jesus is a fruit and manifestation of the mercy of God to his people. The Second Sunday of Easter is commonly referred to nowadays as Divine Mercy Sunday. But, what is Divine Mercy? Is it just one of the many popular devotions in the Catholic tradition? If it is a devotion, then why is it celebrated universally now in the Church?
This message and devotion to Jesus as The Divine Mercy is based on the writings of Saint Faustina Kowalska, an uneducated Polish nun who, in obedience to her spiritual director, wrote a diary of about 600 pages recording the revelations she received about God's mercy. Even before her death in 1938, the devotion to The Divine Mercy had begun to spread. Even though the devotion of The Divine Mercy has been popularized by St. Faustina, the understanding of Divine Mercy is as old as the scriptures of the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, the word mercy has two translations. The first one is “hesed”, which means "steadfast love, covenant love." Someone who has the attribute of hesed is someone you can always count on, someone who never lets you down. Saint John Paul II, in his encyclical Dives Misericordia(Rich in Mercy), wrote these words explaining hesed: When, in the Old Testament, the word hesed is used of the Lord, this always occurs in connection with the covenant that God established with Israel. This covenant was, on God's part, a gift and a grace for Israel ... God had made a commitment to respect it ... [this divine hesed] showed itself as what it was at the beginning, that is, as a love that gives, love more powerful than betrayal, grace stronger than sin. Hesed, as the Hebrew word for mercy, underscores God’s unwavering faithfulness no matter what the human response is to that relationship that he is offering.
The second most common word for God's mercy in the Old Testament is the Hebrew word rachamim: tender, compassionate love, a love that springs from pity. Someone who has rahamim is someone who feels for your plight and is moved with compassion to help you. Rachamim is often used in conjunction with hesed. It comes from a root word rechem, which means a mother's womb. Thus, there is a special intimacy and responsiveness about this kind of love and a special concern for the sufferings of others. Saint John Paul II sees hesed as, in a sense, a masculine form of love (steadfast, dependable, righteous, being true to oneself and to one's promises), while rachamim is more feminine (tender, responsive, compassionate, like a mother responding in love to the sufferings of her child).
Now that we have already established what God’s mercy is, what is the relationship of this to Jesus as The Divine Mercy? If God, in the Old Testament, already reveals himself as hesed— as steadfast, ever faithful to his promises and also as rachamin, meaning tender and compassionate like a mother to a child—then God’s deepest manifestation of his mercy towards us is by sending his very Son in order to reinforce, in the most powerful way, his steadfast and compassionate love. There is no greater mercy than God himself visiting his people and, not just visiting his people but rather, dying for his people and eventually restoring all creation in his resurrection. No wonder why Saint John Paul II wrote that mercy is the second name of love.
Now, the real question is: What should this do to us then? How are we going to respond to this? The message of The Divine Mercy can be divided into three major headings—this is what we call the ABC of The Divine Mercy: A—Ask for God’s mercy. Recognizing our sinfulness and our weaknesses, we must have the courage to approach the throne of mercy. If God’s mercy is steadfast, then we should not be afraid or embarrassed to seek God’s mercy no matter how big our transgressions. Just like in the parable of the prodigal Son, before we even begin our journey back home, the Father is already waiting for us and would run to us to receive us back to his home, our home. B—Be merciful. Be agents of mercy as we ourselves have been recipients of it; be instruments of peace and reconciliation. To do so is not to give a pass to the injustices that others have done to us, but to give ourselves a chance to be liberated and freed from the shackles of past hurts. When we forgive, we are basically telling those who have hurt us, “I refuse to be controlled by what you did to me, so I forgive you; I want to live the grace and the joy of the moment.” C—Completely trust in the Lord. On our own, mercy can be elusive and not appealing; our human tendency is to nurse the grudge and resentment. Pride and vengeance many times overpower us which is why mercy is a gift, a grace that emanates from our trust in the Lord, knowing that ultimately true healing is a divine work done on the cross.
I would like to thank everyone who helped us make our Triduum truly a blessed one, starting with the altar servers,sacristans, Eucharistic ministers, lectors, choir, volunteers for the washing of the feet, the Knights of Columbus and the
St. Therese Guild. This year, Father Anthony and I divided the first two days of the Triduum. Father Anthony did the Holy Thursday and Good Friday services in English at 6pm, while I did the Spanish Holy Thursday and Good Friday services at 8pm. I presided in the Easter Vigil while Father Anthony concelebrated.
On a different note, Betsy Willing, our coordinator of Adult Faith Formation, has decided to leave her post. It was with a heavy heart that I accepted her decision. She had been instrumental in many of our adult faith offerings and events that
reinvigorated and renewed our faith. She wants to spend more time with her family, especially that her children are growing so fast. She will continue to be involved in many of our adult faith activities and events but as a “super-volunteer.” We thank Betsy for her wonderful and superb service to St. Cecilia’s. – Fr. Cary