Sr. Faustina wrote that she heard Jesus say to her, “I want this image, which you will paint with a brush, to be solemnly blessed on the first Sunday after Easter; that Sunday is to be the feast of mercy” (Diary, §49).
On the second Sunday of Easter of the Jubilee Year 2000, at the Mass for the canonization of St. Faustina Kowalska, Pope St. John Paul II proclaimed to the world that “from now on, throughout the Church, this Sunday will be called Divine Mercy Sunday.” Pope St. John Paul II had actively promoted the message of St. Faustina. In his 1980 encyclical on God’s mercy, Dives in Misericordia, he wrote, “The present-day mentality, more perhaps than that of people in the past, seems opposed to a God of mercy, and in fact tends to exclude from life and to remove from the human heart the very idea of mercy” (DM §2).
And in his message for the ninth World Day of Peace, Pope Leo spoke with urgency, begging believers to be witnesses to mercy: “The great parable of the Last Judgment invites all Christians to act with mercy. (See Matthew 25:31-46.) In doing so, they will find brothers and sisters at their side who, in different ways, have listened to the pain of others and freed themselves inwardly from the deception of violence” (Message for World Day of Peace, January 1, 2026).
Now, as much as in times past, the world needs the witness of disciples who embrace and practice mercy in their daily lives. Saint Faustina wrote, “Tell aching mankind to snuggle close to my merciful Heart, and I will fill it with peace” (Diary, §1074). Humankind is aching. With St. Maria Faustina of the Blessed Sacrament, we can each become a sign of God’s merciful love.
Excerpted from Catholic Update, “Divine Mercy in Our Time: Following in the Footsteps of Saint Faustina” by Fr. James White, CSsR (C2605A). Available from Liguori Publications. To order, call 800-325-9521, or visit Liguori.org.