NEW WAYS OF SEEING GOD’S ANCIENT MERCY
The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer once said “All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” Whether this is the case at all times or not, it is certainly a common enough experience to be observed not only by Schopenhauer but by many others. Examples of things that most people now take to be self-evident that were once opposed include universal literacy, the value of democracy, the harmful effects of disciplining children with physical violence and the equality of persons regardless of race and gender. Not surprisingly, our church is not immune to this pattern of human behaviour. Here, too, events, ideas and traditions are often first opposed before becoming accepted. Today’s feast of Divine Mercy is such an event.
The devotion to Divine Mercy is rooted in the visions of a Polish woman – Sr. Maria Faustina – who lived during the years of the First World War. Despite being young and uneducated, she experienced a series of “revelations” from Christ which she recorded in diaries. (It is, in fact, common for such folk to be poor and uneducated. “Instances of the preferential option for the poor,” we might ask?) After Faustina’s death, devotions that centred around her writings and vision of Jesus spread broadly and rapidly.
Despite its popularity, devotion to Divine Mercy was not received favourably by the hierarchy. Indeed, in 1959 it was officially banned by the Holy Office and Sr. Faustina’s writings were placed on the Index of Prohibited Books. It was not until April 15, 1978, under the leadership of St. Pope John Paul II, that this ban rescinded. Devotees, which included the Archbishop of Krakow when he was still Karol Wojtyla, argued that the rejection of Faustina’s writings had been based on poor translations.
All this is to say, that the first lesson that I take from this very new addition to our liturgical calendar is that religious traditions continue to grow and to find new expression in a variety of languages, rituals and art forms. This occurs not in contradiction to the “Capital T” Tradition but as a way of being faithful to it. As someone once said to me, “the only way to betray Tradition is to pass it on unchanged.” For Tradition is the great revelation of God expressed over time and space and bearing their marks. Thus, we need not be afraid of change, for change is a sign of growth and of the development of new insight. New traditions help us see beauty in places overlooked. They open us to messages from God in words previously ignored. They allow us to touch and embrace love wrapped in packaging that we had not expected.
The second lesson, I take away from this new feast is the more obvious one – the reminder of the overflowing mercy of God. In her visions, Faustina heard Christ address her as the “beloved pearl of my heart.” This reminds us how magnificently God loves us – as a merchant loves the pearl for which he will trade all other pearls (Matthew 13:45-46). In this new feast, we celebrate one of our most ancient beliefs – that God is merciful in ways that we cannot even comprehend. Today’s message is that God does not seek to punish us but to embrace us in love despite our weakness and sinfulness. There is nothing that we can do that our good God cannot heal and forgive. And, of course, this calls us to extend a similar mercy to our sisters and brothers.
Of course, no Catholic is obliged to accept any private revelation and, indeed, there may be elements of such events that we find perplexing. Nevertheless, it is wise to explore these stories to see where we might find messages that yield new wisdom and embolden a weak faith.
To learn more about Sr. Faustina and the devotions based on her life, you can visit thedivinemercy.org
Christine Way Skinner is a doctoral student at Regis St. Michael’s at the Toronto School of Theology and has been a lay pastoral minister for more than 30 years. Together with her husband, Michael, she has parented 6 wonderful children. She has written a number of books for Novalis on living the Catholic faith for both adults and children.
