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History of Divine Mercy Sunday, of course it's nothing new. God has been showing his mercy ever since Adam and Eve messed up in the garden. This feast was formally instituted about 20 yrs ago by St. JPII but it had been slowly growing in popularity since 1935, because of the visions of St. Faustina. Which isn’t to say that God finally became merciful 20 years ago but rather that the Pope saw the increasing need for an emphasis on mercy for a world that has become increasingly harsh and callous.
The concept of mercy revolves around debt. I remember my first experience of being in debt when I bought my first new car. It was great to have something brand new and perfect. It was not so great to have payments for 5 years and know the bank had a lien on the title. In fact, I disliked the feeling of being indebted so much that I paid off the car 1.5 years early. Many of you know this even more than I do as you carry substantial loans for homes, businesses, and college education which can span 20-30 years! I have never met someone who liked being in debt and I suspect I never will. Humans like to be free in every dimension of their existence.
Imagine someone came to you and offered to pay off all your loans, large and small. This was not some email scam but the real deal. All you had to do was to name the debts you owed, say you didn’t want them anymore and they would be erased. Would you take advantage of that offer? Unless you were insane, I think you would. And what if you could receive this gift as often as you liked, it was not a one-time thing! Would you only go once? Probably not! Would you wait until debt was crushing you or would you submit every single one, even the little ones for payment and forgiveness?
Every time we sin, we create a spiritual debt that must be paid. And unlike our financial obligations, these spiritual debts last forever and we are unable to repay them on our own. In fact, not even the holiest saint could earn forgiveness for a single sin they committed, no matter how small! It would be more possible for one of us to repay the entire national debt, well over 30 trillion dollars, by ourselves than to earn the forgiveness of one sin.
This is the great news of Divine Mercy; it is not something we earn but a completely free gift of God. And he makes it so easy for us! All we have to do is bring him our sins in the sacrament of confession and he wipes them away forever. And we can receive this mercy as often as we like! So why don’t more people take advantage of it?:
Shame: “God can’t forgive me…” If God was like us, with our limitations and biases, that might be true but fortunately for sinners, he is pure and perfect love. The only sin God cannot forgive is the one that is not given to him. He will not force his forgiveness on us.
Fear: “I don’t want to be judged…What will the priest think…” There are so many stories in the bible that show God’s tenderness toward the sinful soul. As long as one is sorry, God rushes in to heal and comfort us. More often than not, we are far harder on ourselves than God is. As far as what the priests thinks, let me tell you a little secret, sin is pretty boring (Which is not meant to be a challenge). Everyone commits some assortment of the same general group of sins. Honestly, I forget the sins people tell me within minutes of them leaving the confessional.
Pride: “I don’t need to go…I haven’t killed anyone…I’m basically a good person…”(God is glad that you are not a murderer but the standards for getting into heaven are a little more than simply resisting homicidal urges! We are called by Jesus to be perfect as his heavenly father is perfect! All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God…
Stubbornness: “No one tells me what to do…!” We were made by God and for God and he knows us better than we know ourselves. When he instituted the sacrament of confession, it wasn’t simply to give priests something to do or some other arbitrary reason. Rather God, our maker, knew in his mysterious wisdom, that this was the best way for people to experience his mercy on every level of their being: emotional, spiritual, and psychological. When we defy this wisdom and try to seize his mercy on our terms, we do so at our own peril!
Procrastination: “I will get to confession next week…” Eventually we run out of those! And it’s sort of like telling God, “thanks for the incredible offer but I have more important things to take care of than my eternal soul!”
Bad experience: Sometimes we get a grumpy, impatient, or unkind priest. This is a shame but it should not keep us away from God’s mercy. For better or worse, God has called human beings to administer his sacraments and sometimes we run into that very human dimension in our flawed priests. But just like we would not stop eating out forever if we once had a bad waiter, so too with confession. Don’t go back to that priest, but don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater!
This feast of Divine Mercy is a reminder to us how much God wants us back.
He wants to forgive our debts, he doesn’t want us to give excuses but only wants to share his mercy.
As Christians, we need to receive mercy constantly, especially in confession. If we don’t, how can we expect to give it well and freely. We can only give what we have first received.
This feast also reminds us that we are not just asking mercy for ourselves but also for the whole world. We can offer our prayers, sacrifices, inconveniences, illnesses, and pretty much anything unpleasant for those in need of God’s healing. As part of the communion of saints, we are called to intercede for others, even those who have hurt us. In short, we are called to be ambassadors of mercy, all of us, no exceptions.
Today let us thank God for his gift of mercy which he gives freely and constantly. Let’s stop making excuses for staying away from his gift, which only hurts us and those around us. And if we have avoided the sacrament of mercy, if it's been a while since we went to confession, let’s make things right and allow God to love us and take away our spiritual debt. Nothing will make him happier and nothing will bring us more peace and joy!
