The first Sunday after Easter is Divine Mercy Sunday—celebrated this year on April 8—a day on which Our Lord promised that the floodgates of His mercy would be opened to sinners. This day is a wonderful opportunity for the faithful to open themselves to God’s abundant mercy.
“The Octave of Easter is a special eight days between Easter Sunday and the following Sunday, which is Divine Mercy Sunday. And those are the most sacred eight days of the entire liturgical year,” says Fr. Chris Alar, Director of the Association of Marian Helpers.
The message of Divine Mercy that God gave to mankind is as easy to remember as A-B-C. “Ask for God’s mercy, be merciful to each other, and completely trust in God’s mercy,” says Fr. Alar. God shared this message with us throughout human history, but we were not listening. In the 1930s, Our Lord appeared to a nun in Poland, “and he basically said, that’s it. You, Saint Faustina, will prepare the world for my final coming.”
“He first appears to her and says, I want you to paint an image … it’s the image with Jesus in the robe raising His right hand with the rays coming from the heart of the blood and the water. Then He told her, I want a feast … on the Sunday after Easter,” says Fr. Alar. “And [God] said, ‘this feast is to be about my mercy. The world has forgotten it. And He gave her five new channels of grace that we now call the Devotion of Divine Mercy.’” The Devotion consists of the following five parts: Feast of Divine Mercy, Image of Divine Mercy, Novena of Divine Mercy, Chaplet of Divine Mercy, and Hour of Divine Mercy.
“People forget that we are forgiven of our sins in the confessional, but most likely, the punishment remains, and that punishment could be really rough,” says Fr. Alar. The Lord promises that on the Feast of Divine Mercy, if you go to confession and receive Holy Communion, you will be forgiven of your sins and all punishment for those sins is wiped away. “Never will your soul be cleaner than it is on that day, other than your original baptism.”
Jesus, I trust in you.
The Chaplet of Divine Mercy is prayed LIVE each weekday at 4pm ET/1pm PT on Relevant Radio®.
