The Sunday after Easter Sunday is now known in the Catholic Church as Divine Mercy Sunday. It was declared such by the late Holy Father Pope John Paul II now Servant of God, on April 30th in the year 2000 when he canonised St. Faustina and said “from now on throughout the Church this Sunday will be called Divine Mercy Sunday.”
In his last homily for Divine Mercy Sunday, 2005, the Holy Father said, "It is the appropriate and incisive answer that God wanted to offer to the questions and expectations of human beings in our time, marked by terrible tragedies. Divine Mercy! This is the Easter gift that the Church receives from the risen Christ and offers to humanity."
Pope John Paul II died on the 2nd April 2005 eve of the Feast of Divine Mercy.
"And so with provident pastoral sensitivity and in order to impress deeply on the souls of the faithful these precepts and teachings of the Christian faith, the Supreme Pontiff, John Paul II, moved by the consideration of the Father of Mercy, has willed that the Second Sunday of Easter be dedicated to recalling with special devotion these gifts of grace and gave this Sunday the name, "Divine Mercy Sunday" (Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Decree Misericors et miserator, 5 May 2000).
This Feast Day is a day of great grace. Jesus promised that those who go to Confession and receive Holy Communion on Divine Mercy Sunday will receive not only forgiveness of their sins, but the total remission of all temporal punishment for their sins. For more information on the indulgence and on the Divine Mercy devotion you can log on to http://www.divinemercy.org/feast.html
From now, until the Divine Mercy Sunday 2011
let us make a special effort with
Our Lady's help to bring many more souls to His Mercy
through prayer, word and deed.
Jesus said to St. Faustina "Let the greatest sinners place their trust in My mercy. They have the right before others to trust in the abyss of My mercy. My daughter, write about My mercy towards tormented souls. Souls that make an appeal to My mercy delight Me. To such souls I grant even more graces than they ask. I cannot punish even the greatest sinner if he makes an appeal to My compassion, but on the contrary, I justify him in My unfathomable and inscrutable mercy. Write: before I come as a just Judge, I first open wide the door of My mercy. He who refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice..."
(Diary, 1146)
Next years date for your diary
DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY
7th April 2013
O Blood and Water which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fount of Mercy for us, I Trust in You.
