Divine Mercy Sunday: Experience mercy and share mercy

Today is Divine Mercy Sunday. St. Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun, had visions of Jesus who spoke to her of mercy. Mercy means “to suffer in the heart.”  St. Faustina died on October 5, 1938. The Second World War broke out almost exactly one year later with the invasion of Poland. The most merciless regimes in history slaughtered millions. The image of Divine Mercy has white and red light emanating from Christ’s heart as water and blood flowed from his side on the cross. The sacraments of mercy are Baptism and the Eucharist. God’s mercy is a response to human sin.
 
The problem of human sin
The stories of Lent emphasized the problem of human sin. Sin, a word that comes from the Germanic origins of English, zunde. Zunde is also the root of our English word, ‘asunder’ as to ‘rip asunder.’ Sin is the wound in the human heart. God does not punish us for our sins; instead, we suffer the natural consequences that flow from our wounds. Sin is the inescapable wound in every human being.
 
Consider how the problem of sin ran through the stories of Lent:

• On the first Sunday of Lent we read about how Jesus went out into the wilderness, among the beasts and the angels. We are animals with all the animal drives. We also have the gift of angels in our intelligence and our capacity for freedom. But we are neither completely animal nor angels. We are conflicted, torn apart by opposite desires. We need to be healed and made whole. In the Resurrection, Jesus’ humanity and divinity unite both heaven and earth in his divinity and humanity and heals that breach.

• On the Second Sunday of Lent we heard about a woman that was deeply wounded in her relationships with men. Jesus told her that she could be a spring of ‘living water for others.’ She immediately brought others in her village to Jesus. At his resurrection, Jesus sent Mary Magdalene, a woman wounded by sin, to announce the good news. Why? Because they both experienced mercy.

• On the Fourth Sunday of Lent, a man born blind was healed by the mercy of Jesus. His new sight took him deeper into the reality of God than others who had the gift of sight all their lives. Why? Because he had experienced mercy.

• On the Fifth Sunday of Lent we heard about Lazarus, who was dead and was brought back to life by God’s mercy. Jesus is revealed as resurrection and life. Participation in that new life begins now through God’s mercy.

• On Palm Sunday, Jesus’ passion was the moment when he bore all the darkness of this world and offered it to God revealing Divine Mercy. Water and blood flowed from his side; Baptism and Eucharist.

 
But, after the Resurrection, that same distrust of God and one another runs through the stories of Easter.

• The disciples did not trust Mary Magdalene when she told them that Jesus had been raised from the dead.

• Thomas did not trust the witness of the other disciples when they told him that they had seen the risen Jesus.

 
God’s answer to sin is mercy. Jesus breathed on the disciples and told them “whose sins you forgive are forgiven.” Jn. 20 The fear-filled disciples, men and women, experienced God’s mercy and carried God’s mercy out into the world.
 
What is God’s mercy?
Mercy comes from the Latin word ‘Misericordia’ which is rooted in the words for ‘pity’ and ‘heart.’ Like the word ‘compassion’ which means ‘to suffer with”, both words denote God’s entry into the human wounds of sin and suffering.  God’s mercy would be meaningless unless it was directed to some end. God’s mercy and forbearance is ordered towards justice, which means right relationship with God. We are supposed to grow up and be who God made us to be.
 
We all have blessings in our lives; we all experience God’s mercy in some way. To experience God’s mercy we must share his mercy. The experience of God’s mercy, enkindles a desire to share mercy with others. Whether it is counseling those who are struggling, comforting the grieving, housing the homeless or visiting the imprisoned. All the corporal and spiritual works of mercy are the experience of living in the Resurrection. We pray the Our Father and we say ‘thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’ The works of mercy are the expression in the here and now of the life of the kingdom of heaven. We live mercy because like the man born blind we see deeper into human reality. Or, like the woman at the well, we have to share the meaning of life with others. Or like Lazarus, we have had a taste of death and have been pulled back from the abyss.
 
We are to be conduits of divine mercy
You don’t need faith to accept that we have a problem; humanity across the board is broken. Each individual and each community is deeply, brutally flawed and we are all part of that. When others accuse us of sin, we ought to invite them to our penance service where they will find us accusing ourselves of sin. They are not telling us something about ourselves that we don’t already know. Like the stories of Lent and Easter, in the midst of our own sinfulness, we are called to be springs of living water, conduits of mercy, in our suffering world.
 
 Our Divine Mercy Novena will conclude this weekend with Benediction and the Divine Mercy Chaplet at 2 pm in the Church with Fr. Callistus.