My Dear Friends,

Today is Divine Mercy Sunday. The name comes from St. Faustina and the date (the second Sunday of Easter) was promulgated by Pope St. John Paul II. There is a growing devotion in our country to the Divine Mercy chaplet as well as the messages of St. Faustina in her diary. These messages, which St. Faustina claims comes from our Lord, is a logical extension of the devotion to the Sacred Heart. Our world is in desperate need of Divine Mercy. Just spend one hour on social media and all you see is hate and anger towards people who do not believe what you believe. Our country, our state, our city, our Catholic Church, our Archdiocesan church, our local parish and our families are not exempt from the hatred and anger that seethes in the undercurrent of human relationships. At the personal level, many people are burdened by sin in their lives as well. Whether it is sexual sin, greed, racism, gluttony, pride, envy, wrath or having procured an abortion, many people are not able to forgive themselves. Divine Mercy is our Lord’s way of saying that you are forgiven, even for the most heinous of sins, let alone all the other sins we are guilty of committing on a daily basis. And when we are not able to forgive ourselves, we by extension find it difficult to forgive others. Yet forgiveness is a central tenet of our Catholic faith. Let us, therefore, turn to the Lord and his Sacred Heart asking for Divine Mercy so that we may live in freedom from sin.