Devotion for today: The blessings of Divine Mercy Sunday

Tomorrow is Divine Mercy Sunday. Many parishes throughout the world will hold special services at 3pm to honor what Jesus asked of St. Faustina: to designate the Sunday after Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday. Please make an effort to attend these services. The blessings and graces available are amazing!

 The official observance of this Feast, which had already been granted to the nation of Poland and been celebrated within Vatican City, was granted to the Universal Church by Pope John Paul II on the occasion of the canonization of Sr. Faustina on 30 April 2000. In a decree dated 23 May 2000, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments stated that "throughout the world the Second Sunday of Easter will receive the name Divine Mercy Sunday, a perennial invitation to the Christian world to face, with confidence in divine benevolence, the difficulties and trials that mankind will experience in the years to come."Read more:http://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/mercy/feast.htm#ixzz2Pdv28SlE.

 Let’s contemplate what Jesus revealed to St. Faustina:

Whoever approaches the Fountain of Life on this day will be granted complete forgiveness of sins and punishment. (Diary300)

I want the image solemnly blessed on the first Sunday after Easter, and I want it to be venerated publicly so that every soul may know about it. (Diary341)

This Feast emerged from the very depths of My mercy, and it is confirmed in the vast depths of my tender mercies. (Diary420)

On one occasion, I heard these words: My daughter, tell the whole world about My Inconceivable mercy. I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and 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.*[our emphasis] On that day all the divine floodgates through which grace flow are opened. Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its sins be as scarlet. My mercy is so great that no mind, be it of man or of angel, will be able to fathom it throughout all eternity. Everything that exists has come forth from the very depths of My most tender mercy. Every soul in its relation to Me will I contemplate My love and mercy throughout eternity. The Feast of Mercy emerged from My very depths of tenderness. It is My desire that it be solemnly celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter. Mankind will not have peace until it turns to the Fount of My Mercy. (Diary699)

Yes, the first Sunday after Easter is the Feast of Mercy, but there must also be deeds of mercy, which are to arise out of love for Me. You are to show mercy to our neighbors always and everywhere. You must not shrink from this or try to absolve yourself from it. (Diary742)

I want to grant complete pardon to the souls that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion on the Feast of My mercy. (Diary1109 Read more:http://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/mercy/feast.htm#ixzz2PdvaGSkL

Devotion for today: Whack - that - sin!

I must admit that one of my favorite arcade games is Whack-a-mole. The idea is to whack a fake mole as soon as he pops his head up from the game box. It requires careful attention and quick action to bop him before he disappears into the game box again. It reminds me of my battle with repetitive sins. Really, it does, and here is why.

 Sister Frances Cabrini taught me, when I was seven years old, that this is the way to approach Confession: I must spend time finding out what my sins are; I must be sorry for my sins; I must make up my mind never to commit those sins again; I must tell those sins to the priest, and I must do the penance the priest gives me. I learned that in the second grade, and it is as true today as it was then. Those are the steps to a good confession.

Whack-a-mole focuses on the step which states that I must make up my mind never to commit the sins again. God is pleased, ready and waiting to extend His gift of mercy to us when we confess our sins. He assures us that we are forgiven, when we read Jesus’ words to the woman caught in the act of adultery:

Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”(John 8:10-11).

Aha! There it is. Go and leave your life of sin. He means we are to stop committing the sins that brought us to confession in the first place. I must make up my mind to do that. I must take responsibility for my own life. I must stop blaming everyone and every situation for causing my poor behavior. It was a funny line in the ‘70’s to say, “The devil made me do it!’ but the devil only has as much power as we allow him to have over us. So we must treat our sinful tendencies as moles in the game, and they must be whacked as soon as they raise their ugly heads.

If I have a tendency to a judgmental attitude, and I find myself thinking, as I am walking up the Communion line, “What was that lady thinking? How could she wear those boots with that skirt?” then that is a mole for me and I must whack it as soon as it starts. I must stop the thought and jump into a prayer, immediately and with careful attention to my words. I cannot pray like the Pharisee in this passage from Luke:

The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other people--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector.’(Luke 8:11),

 I cannot say, “Thank you God that I have fashion sense and please give this poor woman some.” That is another sin of pride, so before I even get to Communion I have sinned twice! No, a good, responsible prayer would be, “Dear God, please rid me of this judgmental attitude. Please bless this woman whom you have brought into my line of vision so that I may pray for her needs. Bless her and me, dear Lord, as you see fit.” 

See, now I have taken responsibility for my sin. I have taken myself seriously when I said I would sin no more. I have focused on my weakness and found a way to whack it.

 Just because we want our tendencies to go away simply by confessing the sin doesn’t mean it is going to happen. We took many years in getting into the ruts we are in today. But we can get out of them by consciously attacking the temptation the minute it pops up.

 You know how to delete a pop-up on your computer. Well, do it in your life. Come up with a good prayer and use it quickly to avoid a lust-filled website, a juicy piece of gossip that only you know, a hateful remark to the gentleman or lady who just darted in front of you in traffic. Be serious about changing your life – the result is peace, joy and mercy. Since we are preparing for the wonderful feast of Divine Mercy this Sunday, let us take a look at how Jesus addresses our efforts to remove sin in His conversations with St. Faustina in her Diary (1488):

You see, My child, what you are of yourself. The cause of your falls is that you rely too much upon yourself and too little on Me. But let this not sadden you so much. You are dealing with the God of mercy, which your misery cannot exhaust. Remember, I did not allot only a certain number of pardons.

(1488) Do not lose heart in coming for pardon, for I am always ready to forgive you.

Devotion for today: Did I do that?

I have a friend who recently told me she feels as though she doesn’t think she has any “real” sins to confess. In comparison to the big sins surrounding her in the world, she honestly believes her transgressions are not worth mentioning. She and I discussed this problem and concluded that most people who don’t believe that confessing to a priest is necessary truly believe only grave sins are dangerous. Interior conversion is a slow and arduous process. It requires a lot of honest and hard truth-telling.  We must admit that we have a lot of baggage from the past that still haunts us today, causing us to commit the same mistakes over and over again, grave or minor. If we spend time looking hard at our behavior, and tell a priest, who remember is acting “in Persona Christi”, that we have fallen and need God's grace, we will find that the more we search, the more we find, and the more we confess, the better we become. Our hearts do not harden, and we are able to live a loving and merciful life. Let us take a look at a few common transgressions that Fr. Michael Gaitley mentions in his book, “Consoling the Heart of Jesus” a beautiful book about joining our hearts to Jesus. This is only the introduction to these areas – please read this book to see the details.

All sin hardens our hearts, but some sins are particularly effective in doing so. Let’s take a brief look at some specific kinds of sin that do the best job of hardening our hearts….

Gossip and envy: Gossip and envy are especially effective at hardening hearts because of the way they twist our emotional responses to the suffering of others. So, for example, instead of feeling sorry for someone who suffers, gossip and envy get us to rejoice and delight over his suffering. In the case of gossip, this kind of emotional perversion may not happen immediately, but it leads in this direction. Envy is more directly destructive. By its very nature, it leads to a kind of wicked celebration over the misfortune of others whose goods we want for ourselves…. Lust and greed:  Sins that habituate us to seeing our neighbor as an object (instead of as a person) are particularly good at making us blind to the suffering of others. Such sins include lust, whereby we see others simply as objects for sexual pleasure, and greed, whereby we see others merely as opportunities for (or obstacles to) making money. Judgmental attitude: As Blessed Mother Teresa used to say, “If you take the time to judge, you don’t have time to love.” When we assume an attitude of judgment, a gap yawns between us and them, and we can’t connect. This is a diabolical attitude that stems from pride. It’s subtle, but it does more damage to the heart than sins of the flesh – the very sins over which it often sits in judgment….Unwillingness to forgive: Here I’ve saved what may be the “worst” for last. Nothing hardens a heart more than an unwillingness to forgive. When we cling to bitterness, resentment, grudges, and hate for those who have hurt us, our hearts quickly become as cold and hard as ice. When we don’t forgive, we may think we’re punishing the other person, but the reality is we’re destroying ourselves. We often pray to our heavenly Father, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Do we realize that if we don’t forgive, we won’t be forgiven? Still, we need not get discouraged or despair if we have even the slightest bit of good will, the Lord’s mercy is there for us….O Lord, please give us the grace to forgive! (Marian Press, 2011).

No one can ever say that a sin isn’t worth confessing. Anything that keeps us from a true and honest relationship with God needs to be eliminated, and what better way to do it than throwing away our pride, getting down on our knees, and asking God for forgiveness. Let us see what Jesus told St. Faustina about the mercy which awaits us when we return to His graces:

 “Let the greatest sinners place their trust in My mercy. They have the right before others to trust in the abyss of My mercy. My daughter, write about My mercy towards tormented souls. Souls that make an appeal to My mercy delight Me. To such souls I grant even more graces than they ask. I cannot punish even the greatest sinner if he makes an appeal to My compassion, but on the contrary, I justify him in My unfathomable and inscrutable mercy. Write: before I come as a just judge, I first open wide the door of My mercy. He who refuses to pass through the door of My mercy must pass through the door of My justice…” (1146)

“Today the Lord said to me, Daughter, when you go to confession, to this fountain of My mercy, the Blood and Water which came forth from My heart always flows down upon your soul and ennobles it. Every time you go to confession, immerse yourself entirely in My mercy, with great trust, so that I may pour the bounty of My grace upon your soul. When you approach the confessional, know this, that I Myself am waiting there for you. I am only hidden by the priest, but I myself act in your soul. Here the misery of the soul meets the God of mercy. Tell souls that from this fount of mercy souls draw graces solely with the vessel of trust. If their trust is great, there is no limit to My generosity. The torrents of grace inundate humble souls. The proud remain always in poverty and misery, because My grace turns away from them to humble souls.”(1602)