EMBRACING MERCY

ART OF THE POSSIBLE

The Divine Mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ is the only true remedy for human helplessness. Human beings are never more helpless than when standing alone and unaided before the reality of their weaknesses, their own mortality and death itself. Without exception, all human beings need the true remedy of Divine Mercy.

Mercy is the humble art of the supremely possible. But heroic charity and meekness are required. We must hold to the steadfast conviction that the Divine Mercy of Our Lord Jesus Christ is a power greater than the sum of all created things. As St. John Vianney wrote, “Our faults are like a grain of sand beside the great mountain of the mercies of God.”

"WONDROUS POWER" 

Mercy is a light that regenerates, heals, restores, renews, recreates, and reveals:

TELL MY priests that hardened sinners will repent on hearing their words when they speak about my unfathomable mercy, about the compassion I have for them in my heart. To priests who proclaim and extol my mercy, I will give wondrous power; I will anoint their words and touch the hearts of those to whom they will speak.”  [St. Faustina Kowalska’s DIARY NB V 1521] 

God’s mercy is always available even if one does not claim it. But one must be aware of false notions about Divine Mercy such as this erroneous thought: God in his mercy is bound to take me regardless of my indifference or contempt of him or my neighbor. This would be the height of human arrogance and the very depth of human misery.

"OCEAN OF MERCY"

We cannot become jaded and cynical like the 18th c. wit who sniffed, “The only thing that stops God from sending another flood is that the first one was useless.” Nevertheless, our heavenly Father has willed another kind of flood for our stricken world, an “ocean of divine mercy”:

YOU EXPIRED, Jesus, but the source of life gushed forth for souls, and the ocean of mercy opened up for the whole world. O Fount of Life, unfathomable Divine Mercy, envelop the whole world and empty Yourself out upon us.”  [Chaplet of Divine Mercy, DIARY NB IV 1319] 

HEIGHT AND DEPTH

The mere avoidance of personal selfishness and contempt for others is not sufficient for salvation. Nor does the Cross of Christ teach us that a mere human understanding of goodness will gain us eternal life. The Christian religion is anything but indifferent and mediocre.

One must embrace the height and depth, length and breadth of Divine Mercy. The Catholic mathematician, physicist and Catholic philosopher Blaise Paschal was straight to the point:  “We implore the mercy of God, not that he may leave us in peace in the midst of our vices, but that he deliver us from them.”

INTIMATE MERCY

When you are in need, cry out, Have mercy on me, Jesus, Son of the Living God! And the Lord Jesus Christ, in the midst of his deeply penetrating and intimate mercy, will respond, “What do you want me to do for you?”  [Mt 20:32] As Christ revealed to St. Faustina:

WHEN A soul sees and realizes the gravity of its sins, when the whole abyss of the misery into which (the soul) has immersed itself is displayed before its eyes, let it not despair, but with trust let (the soul) throw itself into the arms of my mercy, as a child into the arms of its beloved mother. [DIARY NB V 1541]

UNLESS BY DIVINE MERCY

No human affliction is so great as to make the work of Divine Mercy impossible; no personal comfort is so extravagant as to render mercy irrelevant. As King David said in distress, “Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great”.  [2Sam 24:14] Ever in our hearts we hear the proclamation of the Truth:  Unless it be by Divine Mercy, how can the Holy Spirit be the Comforter? I give you the joy of the Feast of Divine Mercy!