This week is Divine Mercy Sunday. It was called so after the chaplet instituted by St. Faustina in a vision given to her by our Lord in while she was praying in her convent. She was shown a future where mercy would need to be given out more and more and thus the chaplet, and the insititution of Divine Mercy Sunday by Pope. St John Paul II set on the Second Sunday of Easter every year.
But why? It always features the doubting Thomas readings?
The main focus of the readings has been Thomas’ doubts, but if you study the scripture, Jesus gives the apostles a sign of peace, which is him granting them forgiveness for the various things they did 3 days Earlier on Good Friday, and he breathed on them and gave them instructions on the sacrament of reconciliation. Two forms of grace given in the same scripture.
How different would our world look if we actually forgave people and meant it. This doesn’t mean blindly ignoring but actually telling people they have done wrong, what they have done wrong, and how they can address it to do better.
Too often we get offended about something and do not give the offending party insight into what it is that offended us. We just carry on and the person is clueless. What good does that do the world? They will just be doomed to repeat the same offense over and over again.
But if we take the time to teach someone something, then we allow them the grace to learn and evolve. If they take the opportunity, then they become better people. The world slowly evolves and becomes better.
Imagine if this was the tone in our work places, schools, neighborhoods. Would the tone shift. Possibly, but it would be slow. And it takes the onous of learning off the oppressed, and on to the offending party. All’s we have to do is simply explain no more no less.
This Divine Mercy Sunday, let us commit to doing just that, and let’s see how the world changes one soul at a time.
Matt+