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| March 29, 2008 |  |
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Triumph of God’s Love While some may have reservations about the Divine Mercy prayer as they feel it is a personal devotion of a Polish nun that had a special meaning to a Pope who also happened to be Polish, the reflections of the present Holy Father should resolve the issue. Pope Benedict XVI wrote in his first encyclical Deus Caritas Est (God Is Love) “God’s passionate love for his people — for humanity — is at the same time a forgiving love. It is so great that it turns God against himself, his love against his justice.” This is a startling, radical, comment about Divine Mercy — the kind of declaration that one might expect to see attributed to Pope John Paul II. In his homily before the conclave, that elected him, Pope Benedict XVI summed up John Paul’s pontificate by speaking about the late Pope’s emphasis on Divine Mercy: “Jesus Christ is divine mercy in person: Encountering Christ means encountering the mercy of God,” said Pope Benedict. “The mercy of Christ is not a cheap grace; it does not presume a trivialization of evil. Christ carries in his body and on his soul all the weight of evil, and all its destructive force. He burns and transforms evil through suffering, in the fire of his suffering love.” In a visit to the sick on May 7, Pope Benedict embraced not just the message of Divine Mercy, but the specific devotion popularized by St Faustina. He later spoke about visiting the convent where “Sister Faustina Kowalska, contemplating the shining wounds of the Risen Christ, received a message of trust for humanity which John Paul II echoed and interpreted and which really is a central message precisely for our time: mercy as God’s power, as a divine barrier against the evil of the world.” The wrong kind of emphasis on God’s mercy can create the impression that God forgives all in an arbitrary and condescending manner with no reference to reality. So Pope Benedict XVI stresses God’s anger, too. “The anger and mercy of the Lord alternate in a dramatic sequence, but love triumphs in the end, for God is love.” And always, he seeks to root trust in God’s mercy in the Gospels and the sacraments rather than in private revelation. “How many people also in our time are in search of God, in search of Jesus and of his Church, in search of divine mercy, and are waiting for a ‘sign’ that will touch their minds and their hearts!” The Pope said, in one homily. “Jesus who died and rose is the absolutely sufficient sign.” Pope Benedict used Divine Mercy to sum up our Christian lives. “To understand and accept God’s merciful love.” Pope John Paul II has fostered this devotion within the Church, and has declared the Sunday after Easter to be Divine Mercy Sunday. Many of the faithful, especially in the pro-life movement, practise this devotion. Indeed, the link between this devotion and abortion is established by St Faustina herself and recorded in her “Diary.” “On at least three occasions, from 8:00-11:00 in the evening, she felt like her insides were being torn apart. She suffered so much that she thought she was going to die. The doctors couldn’t figure out what was ailing her, and no medication was able to alleviate her sufferings. Later, she was given to understand that she was undergoing those pains for mothers who were aborting their children (Diary, 1276). There is a special Papal Blessing signed on the Feast of the Annunciation for those who pray the Chaplet for an end to abortion; for mothers that they not abort their offspring; for infants in danger of being put to death in the womb; for a change of heart of providers of abortions and of their collaborators; for human victims of stem cell research, genetic manipulation, cloning and euthanasia; and for all entrusted with the government of peoples, that they may promote the culture of life, so as to put an end to the culture of death.” |
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