Endless Mercy
We liturgically lived through an incredible crescendo of God’s love for us last week during Holy Week. Jesus’ suffering and death upon the cross represent God's unfathomable love for us, His creation.
This weekend, on the Sunday after Easter, we will be celebrating Divine Mercy Sunday. In 2000, Pope John Paul II declared the Sunday after Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday. It is rooted in Jesus’ appearances to Polish nun Faustina Kowalska in the early 1900’s. Jesus, through St. Faustina, gave us the image of Divine Mercy with the prayerful phrase, “Jesus, I trust in You.”
Have you ever tried to explain Jesus’ mercy to someone? What would you say?
John Paul II said that mercy is "love's second name.” Jesus’ mercy is comforting. It’s a love that is unconditional. It’s consoling. It’s a consolation that brings forth light in a time of darkness. To help someone else understand Jesus’ Divine Mercy, I would give examples of consolation after consolation that Jesus has given me.
One of the most tangible founts of Jesus’ mercy in my life came in 2018. On the Friday morning after Easter 2018, our house was getting ready for school and work for the day, and we received a phone call that my husband’s older brother had been in an accident and was being taken to the hospital. Gabe needed to go to Springfield right away. As it turned out, Gabe's brother Jason was out for a usual morning run and collapsed. It was his carotid artery. Jason passed away at the age of 43, leaving behind a loving wife and four beautiful children.
Looking back on this tragic day, my human mind tried to make sense of it. Just six months earlier, Gabe had lost his dad to a one-month battle with pancreatic cancer. It was hard to make sense of things. Sometimes things don't make sense until we allow God to guide our sight, and even then, we're still only human.
Jason passed away on Friday, April 6. Jesus died on a Friday. Divine Mercy Sunday was the Sunday after Jason's death, and Easter was the Sunday after Jesus' death. God revealed this parallel to me. We went to Mass on that Divine Mercy Sunday morning at St. Mary's in Pontiac. Then we drove to Mechanicsburg to meet with the pastor to plan Jason's funeral. By God's providence and our priest’s prompting, Gabe and I had been reading about Divine Mercy ("33 Days to Merciful Love" by Fr. Michael Gaitley) for the previous 33 days. God knew we needed to be reading that book at a time such as this. On that day, consecration to merciful love day (!), Gabe and I were supposed to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet at 3pm, but we knew we'd be with the pastor and family at that time. Instead, we prayed the Divine Mercy Chaplet as a family in the car as we got near Gabe's mom's house. Just as we were finishing the prayer, we were driving by one of the pastures where Gabe's family had cattle. I still don't know how Gabe saw it from a quarter-mile away, but as we were looking at the cows, Gabe spotted a cow in labor. So we pulled off the road to check it out, and sure enough, this momma cow was about ready to have a calf! Minutes after praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet, and an hour before we met with the pastor to discuss Jason's funeral, we saw new life be born in a pasture.
God's mercy became tangible to me in April 2018. I witnessed it. And God's mercy is consolation for all of us. God's endless mercy, His endless love, is truly there for the taking for all of us.
One of Pope Francis' quotes reminds me of this: The Lord never tires of giving His love to us, it is we who tire of asking for His love.
Eternal God, in whom mercy is endless and the treasury of compassion inexhaustible, look kindly upon us and increase your mercy in us, that in difficult moments we might not despair nor become despondent, but with great confidence submit ourselves to your holy will, which is Love and Mercy itself. Amen.