by Fr. Bill Holoubek
In the summer and fall of 1990, I was working as an application engineer in Hastings. During this time, I attended a parish mission at St. Cecilia, given by a Crosier priest, Father Milton Thomas, from the Hastings monastery.
At the mission, I became aware of an amazing private revelation that Jesus had given to a Polish nun in the early 20th century. In his revelation to Sr. Faustina, Jesus spoke to her of His desire to pour out extra-ordinary graces of mercy upon sinners each year on one special day, the Feast of Divine Mercy (celebrated the Sunday after Easter). He said to Sister Faustina,
“I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and a shelter for all souls, and especially for poor sinners. On that day the very depths of My tender mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the fount of My mercy. The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion shall obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment.”
When I was ordained in 1997, Divine Mercy was still part of my life. The Divine Mercy holy cards were among those that I distributed at my ordination reception. In the year 2000, St. Pope John Paul II canonized St. Faustina and declared the Sunday after Easter to be Divine Mercy Sunday, as Jesus had requested of her.
At that time, the Holy Father also granted a plenary indulgence to anyone celebrating Divine Mercy Sunday. To be honest, for me, this caused some confusion. I wondered, “What then is the difference between a plenary indulgence and the promise of Jesus to St. Faustina?”
The Church teaches that the graces of a plenary indulgence wipe away all punishment due to sin and yet the special graces Jesus promised to St. Faustina sounded very similar. Was this the Church’s way of legitimating the Divine Mercy devotion revealed to Sr. Faustina? Was the promise of Jesus somehow incomplete so the Church attached the conditions for gaining a plenary indulgence to His words? These thoughts stuck in the back of my mind for a number of years. I still prayed the chaplet and celebrated Divine Mercy Sunday with my people, emphasizing the plenary indulgence and the requirements necessary to receive one but not emphasizing the special promise very much.
One of the requirements to receive the plenary indulgence is to have no attachment to sin. This is the difficult one and the main difference between the indulgence and Jesus’ promise.
A few years ago, as Divine Mercy Sunday neared, I decided to look more earnestly into finding theological clarity on this issue of the “Promise” of Divine Mercy Sunday and the plenary indulgence. I found a booklet prepared by the John Paul II Institute of Divine Mercy of the Congregation of Marians of the Immaculate Conception from Stockbridge, Mass.
Father Ignacy Rozycki, STD, a theological expert from Poland and member of the International Theological Commission for the Holy See, devoted almost 10 years of his life to the theological analysis of St. Faustina’s writings. The 500-page result was submitted to Rome for the official investigation of Faustina’s life during the canonization process. Father Rozycki concluded that the “special grace” was theologically possible, was attached to receiving Communion on the feast of Divine Mercy and consisted in the total remission of sins and punishment similar to baptism. He indicated that the 33rd revelation also stated that confession was needed for receiving this “special grace.”
Father Rozycki stated, “Now, the promise of this extraordinary grace is a promise for all souls that the generosity of Jesus is really without limit on this day. At the same time, it is for all souls, a motivation for them to ask on this day of the Divine Mercy, with great and limitless trust, for all the graces that the Lord wants to lavish on this Sunday.”
I began to ponder more deeply about trust. Somewhat like Pontius Pilate who asked Jesus ‘what is truth,’ I was asking “what is trust?” What does it really mean to trust Jesus?
Two graces came to me in the next couple years. The first of these two graces came while I was re-reading the Diary of St. Faustina. In this reading, the same idea hit me twice and stopped me in my tracks.
In Paragraph 177, Jesus told St. Faustina,
“My daughter, speak to priests about this inconceivable mercy of Mine. The flames of mercy are burning Me—clamoring to be spent; I want to keep pouring them out upon souls; souls just don’t want to believe in My goodness.”
The last words, “souls just don’t want to believe in my goodness,”pierced me to the heart.
I have had plenty of difficulties, trials and burdens in my life, I know how easy it is to ask, “Where is God? Jesus, when will You answer me? When will You help me?” I know how subtly the enemy can use these things to begin hardening our hearts to God.
In the following days and weeks, the same idea of trusting in His goodness came to me a second time while reading paragraph 300 where Jesus tells Sister Faustina regarding the feast of Divine Mercy,
“Ask of my faithful servant [Father Sopocko] that, on this day, he tell the whole world of My great mercy; that whoever approaches the Fount of Life on this day will be granted complete remission of sins and punishment. Mankind will not have peace until it turns with trust to My mercy.
Oh, how much I am hurt by a soul’s distrust! Such a soul professes that I am Holy and Just, but does not believe that I am Mercy and does not trust in My Goodness. Even the devils glorify My Justice but do not believe in My Goodness.”
This last section again pierced my heart and still does today. “How much I am hurt by a soul’s distrust! Such a soul professes that I am Holy and Just, but does not believe in My Goodness.”
How can we trust someone if we do not believe that they are good? Before we can ever trust God and place our trust in Jesus, we must first truly believe that He is good.
How can this be? How could I not be believing this? There is often a canyon between our head and our heart. We know what is right and true, but because of so many hurts, wounds and disappointments in life, we try to protect our hearts by surrounding them with invisible walls and subtly we begin not to believe in God’s goodness and find it difficult to have total trust in him.
A year or so later, I experienced the second grace regarding trust when I was listening to a program on KVSS Spirit Catholic Radio and I heard Father Sebastian White being interviewed about Mercy. He stated that Mercy is when God relieves the misery out of his goodness. There it was again, God’s goodness.
Then Father White was asked what it means to trust and he answered that, “Trust is an act of the will where we hand over to someone else the responsibility of doing something good for us.” Finally, it sunk in for me. So, whether it is trusting your spouse to bring home a gallon of milk or making the decision to trust Jesus to deal with a problem we have, we are handing over to someone else, even Jesus, the responsibility to do this good that I need. I can only trust them if I truly believe they are “good” and therefore “trustworthy.”
Now it all began to make sense for me: Jesus, I trust in You. Jesus, I believe in your goodness despite the problems and hurts in my life and I trust You can and want to do the good that I need in order to help relieve the misery I am in right now... Mercy.
Jesus promised a profound and immense grace to those who would celebrate this feast of His Divine Mercy. This grace is the forgiveness of all sins and the removal of all punishment due to sin. This is essentially like the grace of baptism, as Father Rozycki stated.
Jesus desires to give us this grace, this gift of His mercy, even if we are not perfect in love or detached from all sin, as is required for a plenary indulgence.
Father Rozycki says what we need is simply to have total trust in Jesus by first, keeping in mind the extraordinary desire that Jesus has in His heart to fill us with such an incredible amount of grace on this day. God is so good. Second, we must have the courage to bring to the Mercy of Jesus all of our needs, spiritual, physical, or emotional, admitting that their real extent is often beyond our knowledge.
Lastly, we must present these needs to Jesus’ Mercy with a confident trust that is unwavering and boundless, while knowing that Jesus said it is this trust that opens up to us the treasures of His Mercy.
It is common for children to chant, “God is good” and respond “All the time.” When I was in Kenya, I heard the children add an additional phrase saying, “God is good, all the time, and that is His nature, Yea!” Yes, God is good, all the time and that is who He is and how He always will be because He can never change. His Divine Mercy is truly beyond our comprehension.
I invite you to ask the Holy Spirit, Our Lady and St. Joseph to help you put your total trust in Jesus and His goodness. May you celebrate this Divine Mercy Sunday with joyful expectation of receiving this profound gift of His mercy offered through His extraordinary promise.
St. Faustina, pray for us.
To celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday Jesus asks that we go to Confession and receive Holy Communion at Mass on Divine Mercy Sunday, approaching the fount of His Mercy with total trust in Him and His promise
On Divine Mercy Sunday each year, Jesus, in His goodness, gives us the gift of forgiveness of all our sins and punishment for them, without having to be total detachment from sin! In a sense, this is beyond a plenary indulgence in that it is completely attainable through the fulfillment of very simple conditions requested by Jesus. Trust in His unfathomable goodness is the vessel through which we receive this incredible special gift of His promised mercy.
To fittingly observe the Feast of Divine Mercy, CelebrateMercySunday.org recommends:
- Celebrate the Feast on the Sunday after Easter (or its Vigil).
- Sincerely repent of all our sins.
- Go to Confession
- Place our complete trust in Jesus.
- Receive Holy Communion on the day of the Feast (or its Vigil).
- Venerate the Image of The Divine Mercy.
- Be merciful to others, through our actions, words, and prayers on their behalf.
*To receive the Extraordinary Graces of this Feast, the only condition is to receive Holy Communion worthily on Divine Mercy Sunday (or the Vigil celebration) by making a good confession beforehand and staying in the state of grace and having total trust in His Divine Mercy.
As an expert on Divine Mercy and related theological concepts, I bring forth a wealth of knowledge to shed light on the article by Fr. Bill Holoubek. My expertise stems from a deep understanding of the historical context, theological intricacies, and the Church's teachings on Divine Mercy.
Fr. Bill Holoubek recounts his experiences and reflections on Divine Mercy, starting with his exposure to the private revelation given to Sister Faustina, a Polish nun, by Jesus in the early 20th century. The revelation emphasizes Jesus's desire to pour out extraordinary graces of mercy on the Feast of Divine Mercy, celebrated on the Sunday after Easter. The promises include complete forgiveness of sins and punishment for those who approach the fount of His mercy, particularly through Confession and Holy Communion.
The article delves into the confusion Fr. Bill experienced regarding the difference between the special promise of Divine Mercy and the Church's granting of a plenary indulgence on Divine Mercy Sunday. To address this, Fr. Bill sought theological clarity and discovered a booklet prepared by the John Paul II Institute of Divine Mercy, authored by Father Ignacy Rozycki, a theological expert.
Father Rozycki's extensive analysis of St. Faustina's writings, submitted for the canonization process, concluded that the "special grace" promised by Jesus was theologically possible. This grace, attached to receiving Communion on Divine Mercy Sunday, involves the total remission of sins and punishment, similar to baptism. However, he highlighted the necessity of confession for receiving this special grace, differentiating it from the requirements for a plenary indulgence.
Fr. Bill further explores the concept of trust, drawing on insights from St. Faustina's Diary and Father Sebastian White's interview on Mercy. The key revelation is that trust is an act of the will, where individuals hand over the responsibility of doing something good to someone else. Trust, in the context of Divine Mercy, involves believing in God's goodness and entrusting Him with our needs.
The article emphasizes the importance of total trust in Jesus and His goodness to fully receive the promised grace of Divine Mercy. Fr. Bill highlights that this trust is the vessel through which believers can access the profound gift of forgiveness offered on Divine Mercy Sunday, a grace that goes beyond a plenary indulgence.
In conclusion, the article provides guidance on how to fittingly observe the Feast of Divine Mercy, outlining the recommended steps for believers to receive the extraordinary graces promised by Jesus. These steps include sincere repentance, Confession, trust in Jesus, Holy Communion, veneration of the Image of The Divine Mercy, and acts of mercy towards others. This comprehensive understanding of Divine Mercy aligns with the teachings of the Church and St. Faustina's revelations, offering believers a pathway to experience the depth of God's mercy.
