True Peace Arises From Divine Mercy

March 30, 2008. During the Jubilee Year 2000 the servant of God John Paul II ordained that throughout the Church the Sunday after Easter, apart from being in Albis Sunday, should also be called Divine Mercy Sunday. The pronouncement coincided with the canonization of Faustina Kowalska, a humble Polish nun, who was born in 1905, died in 1938, and was a zealous messenger of the Merciful Jesus. 

Mercy is the central nucleus of the evangelical message. Merciful love also illuminates the face of the Church and shows itself both through the Sacraments - especially the Sacrament of Penance - and through works of charity. From divine mercy, which brings peace to hearts, arises authentic peace for the world, peace between peoples, and among various cultures and religions. 

Like Sister Faustina, John Paul II was also an apostle of Divine Mercy. That unforgettable Saturday, April 2, 2005, when he closed his eyes to this world, was the eve of the second Sunday of Easter.  And many people remarked upon the singular coincidence which brought together two dimensions: the Marian (the first Saturday of the month), and that of Divine Mercy.

It is here that John Paul II's long and multifaceted pontificate has its central core; his entire mission at the service of the truth about God and man and of peace in the world is summed up in this statement he himself pronounced at Krakow-Lagiewniki in 2002, inaugurating the great Shrine of Divine Mercy: "Apart from God's mercy there is no other source of hope for human beings." His message, then, like that of St. Faustina, leads us back to the face of Christ, the supreme revelation of God's mercy. Constantly contemplating that face is the legacy he left us and that we joyfully accept and make our own. 

First World Apostolic Congress on Divine Mercy will be held in Rome next week, to be inaugurated with a Mass in St. Peter's Square on Wednesday, April 2nd, the third anniversary of the death of John Paul II. 

We place the congress under the celestial protection of Most Holy Mary "Mater Misericordiae." To her we entrust the great cause of peace in the world, that God's mercy may achieve that which is impossible for merely human efforts, and infuse hearts with the courage for dialogue and reconciliation. 

May the intercession of St. Faustina and of Servant of God John Paul II help you to be true witnesses of merciful love.

Source: Vatican Information Service:
http://www.vatican.va/news_services/press/vis/vis_en.html