By Matthew Walz
John Paul II passed away on the night of April 2, 2005. It was Holy Saturday and, therefore, the vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday. It would be hard to imagine a more appropriate moment for his departure to the Father’s house.
Almost five years earlier, on April 30, 2000, after the Mass of the Second Sunday of Easter, John Paul told Dr. Valentín Fuster: «This is the happiest day of my life». He had just canonized St. Faustina Kowalska as the first saint of the new millennium. Dr. Fuster, an accomplished cardiologist and friend of the Pope, had verified the second miracle required for Faustina’s canonization: the healing of a diocesan priest from congestive heart failure.
(Sidebar note: Can one think of a better image of what it means to become truly merciful—truly misericors or of «compassionate heart»—than being healed of congestive heart failure?)
Always attentive to the historical significance of events, John Paul stated the following during his homily:
«Today my joy is truly great as I present to the whole Church, as a gift of God for our time, the life and witness of Sister Faustina Kowalska. By the design of divine Providence, the life of this humble daughter of Poland was completely linked to the history of the 20th century, the century we have just left behind. In fact, it was between the First and Second World Wars that Christ entrusted his message of mercy to her… Jesus said to Sister Faustina: «Humanity will not find peace until it turns with trust to divine mercy»… The light of divine mercy, which the Lord wished to return to the world through the charism of Sister Faustina, will illuminate the path of men and women of the third millennium».
Initially, as a young Polish priest and then as Archbishop of Krakow, Karol Wojtyla became familiar with Sister Faustina’s teachings on Divine Mercy through her diary. He was also well acquainted with the image of Jesus that she was asked to have painted: Christ with rays of red and white light radiating from his heart, reminding us of the blood and water that flowed from his side as a source of mercy for us, signifying the Church’s life-giving sacraments. For John Paul II, a man of exceptional compassion matured through suffering, it is no surprise that the canonization of Sister Faustina brought him such joy.
St. Faustina had no greater promoter than John Paul II. Not only did he raise her to the altars, but he also ensured the perseverance of her message by establishing Divine Mercy Sunday. Lex orandi, lex credendi: annually, this feast reminds us that the Father’s mercy constitutes the heart of all reality.
John Paul anticipated this almost 20 years earlier in his second encyclical, Dives in misericordia, whose title derives from St. Paul’s description of the Father as «rich in mercy» (Ephesians 2:4). Dives in misericordia complemented his first encyclical, Redemptor hominis: the latter highlighted the human dimension of Christ’s redemptive work, while Dives in misericordia emphasized its divine dimension, that is, the merciful love coming from the Father, first revealed in the work of creation and then in the redemptive offering of his Son on the Cross.
Among the myriad insights that can be drawn from Dives in misericordia, three are worth highlighting.
First: As a devoted friend of the Bridegroom, John Paul scrutinized the Gospels to discover what informed Christ’s conscientia (the «conscience») as he carried out his mission on earth. John Paul longed to know Christ «from within», to grasp the inner source of his saving action. At the beginning of the encyclical, John Paul summarizes what he learned: «To make present the Father as love and mercy is, in the consciousness of Christ himself, the fundamental proof of his mission as Messiah» (§3). What an illuminating idea! When Christ acted in the world, John Paul teaches us, the question he continually asked himself was this: In this particular situation, how do I best make present the Father as love and mercy? Would we not do well—we, the adopted sons and daughters of the Father—having clothed our minds with the mind of Christ, to inform our conscience in the same way?
Second: Two sections occupy the center of Dives in misericordia: one on the parable of the prodigal son and another on the Paschal Mystery. The well-known parable reveals God’s immeasurable and inimitable mercy, which permeates our relationship with him. However, the Paschal Mystery reveals an even greater depth of mercy; for, by freely choosing to enter into human suffering and death, Christ enables us not only to receive mercy, but also to show mercy to God himself. In fact, year after year during the Triduum, the Church invites us to relive Christ’s passion to «misericord» him, to have compassion and console him, from his first sigh of agony to his last breath of life. Therefore, the Paschal Mystery reveals the greatest mercy shown to us: the inscrutable mercy of allowing us to «misericord» God himself.
Third: This admirable exchange of mercy in the Paschal Mystery provides a paradigm for all mercy, which the fifth beatitude captures concisely: «Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy» (Matthew 5:7). Action and reward coincide in mercy, and from this we learn a profound practical truth to inform our consciences. As John Paul says: «A true act of merciful love is given only when, in performing it, we are deeply convinced that at the same time we are receiving mercy from those who accept it from us» (§14). If we try to act mercifully without a full conviction about the mutuality of mercy, then «the conversion has not yet been fully accomplished in us… nor do we yet fully participate in that magnificent source of merciful love that has been opened to us by Christ».
On this Divine Mercy Sunday, in our mutual dealings, let us remember the reciprocity of mercy that constitutes the core of Christian life, that admirable exchange of mercy that Christ himself taught in the Sermon on the Mount and exemplified in the Paschal Mystery.
About the author
Matthew Walz will begin serving as president of Thomas More College in New Hampshire next September. He is currently an associate professor of Philosophy and director of the Philosophy and Letters and Pre-Theology programs at the University of Dallas. He also serves as director of Intellectual Formation at Holy Trinity Seminary. This year he is a visiting professor of Philosophy at the Augustine Institute and holds the Newman Chair of Catholic Studies at Thomas More College. He and his beautiful wife, Teresa, have been blessed with eight children.