Divine Mercy Sunday was celebrated April 24 with a procession and Adoration on the grounds of the motherhouse of the Seraphic Sisters on Beethoven Street, and Auxiliary Bishop Michael Boulette also presided at a liturgy at St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles Church in Alamo Heights.
Divine Mercy Sunday, celebrated the Sunday after Easter each year, was instituted by Pope St. John Paul II in 2000.
St. Maria Faustina Kowalska, a 20th-century Polish nun who received prophetic messages from Christ, received revelations about the infinite mercy of God — coined the “Divine Mercy” — and her obligation to spread the message to the world, as recorded in her diary, “Divine Mercy in my soul.”
Pope Francis in his homily for Divine Mercy Sunday encouraged everyone, especially priests, to remember the moments in their lives when they have experienced God’s forgiveness, and the joy and peace that God’s forgiveness brings.
“The joy God gives is indeed born of forgiveness. It bestows peace. It is a joy that raises us up without humiliating us,” the pope said at St. Peter’s Basilica.
