Shalom Catholic Community invites you to celebrate the Divine Mercy Sunday at St. Monica Catholic Church in Hoxton, London. It will be held on April 12th, 2015, starting at 3pm and ending at 7pm with Holy Mass. It will be an afternoon of prayer, Adoration, prayer of the Divine Mercy chaplet, confession, Holy Eucharist, veneration of St Faustina’s relic and a talk to deepen our faith on this devotion. Come along and bring your family!
Divine Mercy Devotion History
Sister Faustina was a simple religious nun from the Congregation Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy. She was born in Poland in 1905, was raised by her very poor family and survived the terrible years of World War I. However, as Godlikes to choose the little ones to perform His great wonders, in 1931 the Lord Jesus appeared to her as the King of Divine Mercy wearing white garments, with rays of light coming from His heart. He asked her that an image of Him should be painting according to what she saw and with the signature “Jesus, I trust in You”. This image should be venerated first in a chapel and later the devotion towards His Divine Mercy should be spread throughout the world.
Much more was revealed to Sister Faustina in visions and conversations she had with Our Lord, as she wrote on her diary which was later published as a book called “The Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul”. She was canonized by Pope John Paul II in April 2000. The pope surprised the world on her canonization’s homily by saying: “It is important then that we accept the whole message that comes to us from the word of God on this Second Sunday of Easter, which from now on throughout the Church, will be called ‘Divine Mercy Sunday’“.
The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Saccraments also 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.”