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1. Jesus asked for it. St. Faustina Kowalska, was a young member of The Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in Lodz, Poland. In the early 1930s, she received a series of messages from The Lord expounding His desire to extend mercy upon humanity. He asked her to write these messages down. Among the messages was the request for an image of Himself to be commissioned: "Paint an image according to the pattern you see, with the signature: Jesus I Trust in You. I desire that this image be venerated, first in your chapel, and throughout the world."(The Diary of St. Maria Faustina...

God’s Perfect Mercy – A Meditation for Divine Mercy Sunday By: Msgr. Charles PopeWe live in times in which mercy, like so many other things, has become a detached concept in people’s minds, separated from the things that really help us to understand it. For indeed, mercy makes sense and is necessary because we are sinners in desperate shape. Yet many today think it unkind and unmerciful to speak of sin as sin. Many think that mercy is a declaration that God doesn’t really care about sin, or that sin is not a relevant concept.On the contrary, mercy means that sin...

ome, Italy, Mar 13, 2015 / 10:05 am (CNA/EWTN News).- During his homily for a Lenten penitential service, Pope Francis announced an extraordinary Jubilee to start at the end of the year, which will be dedicated to a theme close to the pontiff’s heart: mercy. “Dear brothers and sisters, I have thought about how the Church can make clear its mission of being a witness of mercy,” the Pope told attendees of his March 13 penitential liturgy in St. Peter’s Basilica. “It's a journey that starts with a spiritual conversion. For this reason I have decided to declare an Extraordinary...

Jesus said to Sister Faustina, "Encourage souls to place great trust in My fathomless mercy. Let the weak, sinful soul have no fear to approach Me, for even if it had more sins than there are grains of sand in the world, all would be drowned in the unmeasurable depths of My mercy" (Diary, 55-56)."In the end, even the 'yes' to love is a source of suffering, because love always requires expropriations of my 'I,' in which I allow myself to be pruned and wounded. Love simply cannot exist without this painful renunciation of myself, for otherwise it becomes pure...

The message from Saint Faustina Kowalska is nothing new.  The Divine Mercy devotion reminds us of the most fundamental teaching of Jesus Christ: repent and believe. However, the urgency of the message and connection with the Pontificate of Pope John Paul the Great should get our attention and make us reflect upon our lives.             “You will prepare the world for My final coming (Diary 429). Speak to the world about My mercy ... It is a sign for the end times.  After it will come the Day of Justice. While there is still time, let them have recourse to...

Divine Mercy Sunday Year A- Death of Pope John Paul II (2005) Today, if Jesus would stand before us, he would say, “Be not be Afraid”, “Peace be with You!” Today, the Church, and the world mourns, the loss of Pope John Paul II, who died yesterday. One of the greatest popes, in the history of the Church, he passed into eternal life. And now, we feel abandoned. For us, now is a time of great sadness, but also a time, to celebrate God’s gift of mercy, on this feast of Divine Mercy, given to us, by this future saint:...

Divine Mercy Sunday April 22, 2001 Second Sunday of Easter Reading I (Acts 5:12-16) Reading II (Revelation 1:9-11a, 12-13, 17-19) Gospel (St. John 20:19-31) At the end of the Gospel reading today, Saint John tells us that he has written these things down so that we will believe that Jesus is the Christ; that through belief in His name, we will have life. That is the purpose of Our Lord’s coming: that we would have life. He said we would have life to its fullness. He wants us to have abundant life. Not just natural life, like somebody, for instance,...