Divine Mercy Sunday

This weekend we enter the second week of the Easter Season.

The Easter season is fifty days from the Sunday of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ to Pentecost Sunday.

This Sunday the Church celebrates Divine Mercy Sunday, named by Pope St John Paul II at the canonisation of St Faustina on 30 April 2000.

Born in Poland, Maria Faustina Kowalska received only three years of education so hers were the humblest of tasks when she joined the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in 1925.

However she received extraordinary revelations from Jesus Christ which she compiled into notebooks. These notebooks are known today as the Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, and the words contained within are God's loving message of Divine Mercy.

One revelation speaks of Jesus wearing a white garment with beams of red and white coming from His heart, which came to be known as the image of Divine Mercy.

Divine Mercy Sunday is not a feast based solely on St. Faustina's revelations. The Second Sunday of Easter was already a solemnity as the Octave Day of Easter.

The title "Divine Mercy Sunday" does, however, highlight the meaning of the message to trust in Jesus' endless mercy, and to live life mercifully toward others. 

St. Faustina's story reminds us that we are all called by Jesus in different ways, and that we must trust in him no matter if the path ahead of us is filled with tribulations and uncertainty. He loves us, and therefore we should never despair.