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April 14, 2024This week we celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday. Back in 2016, the Church celebrated a year of mercy, during which the book The Name of God is Mercy was written by Pope Francis. This is one of my all-time favorite books. In the book, Pope Francis writes that the root word of mercy is “misericordia,” which means “opening your heart to wretchedness.” Mercy is not just a feeling. It’s a decision with consequences. When we receive the mercy of God, allow God to enter into the parts of our soul which have become disordered due to sin, and thus allow God to heal us. We sometimes are tempted to think of mercy as simply saying we are sorry for what we have done, but mercy is much denser than simply offering or receiving forgiveness. Mercy involves compassion, it forces us to open ourselves to suffer with one another. This is why mercy is so significant in our lives and why it is lacking in our society.
In the Gospel, Christ calls St. Matthew and quotes from the book of Hosea, "It is not the healthy who require a doctor, but the sick: I did not come to appeal to the righteous, but to sinners.” (Matthew 2:17). This is a powerful statement because it reminds us that we are all in the need of Christ’s healing, and especially those who seem the furthest from Christ are the ones who need Him the most. No one is outside the grasp of the mercy of God, we all sin. St. John Paul II said, “There is nothing more man needs than Divine Mercy - that love which is benevolent, which is compassionate, which raises man above his weakness to the infinite heights to the holiness of God.” On this Divine Mercy Sunday, let us reflect on the need of mercy in our lives, both the mercy which we have received from God and the mercy we ought to extend to one another. This is not easy but during the season of Easter we recognize the power of the Resurrection in our lives and allow the love of God to transform us into a holy people.
In Christ,
Fr. Chris
