This is Divine Mercy Sunday, yet God’s Mercy may seem intangible to us. How it is that His Mercy for us need only be requested?
Saint Faustina Kowalska recorded Christ’s apparitions to her and noted that “God’s loving mercy” towards all people was especially for sinners.” The two main themes of the devotion are to trust in Christ’s endless goodness and to show mercy to others acting as a conduit for God’s love towards them.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said of the merciful that they will receive mercy from God.
When I think of God’s mercy this is what I always remember, the man of faith I know who showed mercy that could only be seen as being a conduit of God’s love.
This man, an attorney, had been at their families’ parish after a day at work. He met his wife and children where they prepared meals for the homeless.
When it was time to go home he kissed his wife and headed out before her, making a green light that she missed. He turned around and found that his wife’s car had been hit by a drunk driver, their young son killed, and his wife, a doctor, critically injured.
In the following days caring for their young daughter, this extraordinary man-made a public display of forgiving the driver by publishing the forgiveness in the local paper and assuring him and his family of his prayers.
This was a third offense for the driver. He did not fight the charges and was sent to jail. This couple worked to have the driver’s sentence reduced, and in July 2019, the governor’s office commuted the sentence to time served. This man wrote to me “The driver was released in October 2019. Praise be to God.”
When I think of God’s Mercy, this witness of Mercy stays with me always.
Today on this Feast of Divine Mercy may we Trust in Jesus, share God’s mercy with others and pray the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy so that, when we are called upon to be a conduit of God’s Love and Mercy, we may receive the grace to do so.
Elise Frederick