Dear Sisters and Brothers,
I am well aware of the reality of sin not only notionally but also from a very personal point of view; I
bump into it at regular intervals each day. I find myself debating in my mind and heart. “I know what
the right thing to do is, what the choice for good is, for life, for God; but here and now I am going to
choose something else. I am going to compromise and choose something less than right, something
inferior to the good, something which diminishes life, something which takes me away from God. I am
going to put myself first and everyone else will have to come at least second in the pecking order. I’m
not bothered at what cost it will be to anyone else, this is what I want here and now and I am going to
have it, I’m going to do it!” Yes, sin is definitely a reality in my life. How about you?
I know there is evil in the world also, and I am not just talking about the Devil. I certainly believe the
Devil exists who works against God’s plan by trying to lure me away from God’s Way. No, I am
talking about the evil that can unite one nation against another, one group against another, one
ideology against another. Evil can grow out of cultural attitudes of selfishness which presume that
some of us have rights to possessions, power and influence over others. We have witnessed the results
of this in so many graphic ways in recent years; ‘the Banking Crisis’, the grotesque inequality
between those countries and nations which have plenty and more than enough and those which have
little and are barely surviving. Yes, I certainly believe in sin and I believe in evil.
But I also believe in Redemption and Divine Mercy. For the last ten days or so we have been
commemorating and rejoicing in these two life-giving realities. We know the effects of sin and evil,
but we have also witnessed the divine mercy of our God through the loving sacrifice of Jesus on the
cross and through his resurrection. In fact we should be able to make our own the joyous cry of St
Peter in our second reading today: “Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his
great mercy has given us a new birth as his children, by raising Jesus Christ from the dead, so that we
have a sure hope and the promise of an inheritance that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade
away, because it is being kept for you in the heavens.”
On the evening of the first Easter, when Jesus came among his disciples, huddled together in fear, his
first words to them were, “Peace be with you.” And then, to show them that this peace had real
foundations in the divine mercy of God, he added: “Receive the Holy Spirit. For those whose sins you
forgive, they are forgiven; for those whose sins you retain, they are retained.” Despite the reality of
sin and evil, we can still “give thanks to the Lord for he is good, for his love has no end.” No sin, no evil can resist his gracious mercy; all we have to do is recognise our need of his forgiveness and he is walking towards us greeting us with his peace.
Today is Divine Mercy Sunday, the Octave Day of Easter. This Feast Day was established by Blessed
Pope John Paul II at the canonisation of St Maria Faustina Kowalska on 30th April 2000. Five years later, on the vigil of the Feast of Divine Mercy, 2nd April 2005, by God’s Providence, Blessed Pope John Paul died. He had already written a homily for Divine Mercy Sunday before he died in which he called for greater acceptance and understanding of Divine Mercy. His homily ended with the words: “Jesus, I trust in you, have mercy on us and on the whole world.” It’s not a bad prayer for us all to pray frequently!
This Sunday, 27th April 2014, Pope John Paul II together with his great predecessor, Pope John XXIII
will be canonised in Rome. If their life’s work and the legacy of St Maria Faustina Kowalska are to
mean anything to us, then surely it is the necessity that we have to turn to the Lord in our need, in
repentance, trusting in his promise of the outpouring of an ocean of graces and the forgiveness of sin
and punishment. Today may we open ourselves, our lives, our hearts, to the gift of Divine Mercy so
that together we can all pray in the words of our opening prayer at Mass:
that we may grasp and rightly understand
in what font we have been washed,
by whose Spirit we have been reborn,
by whose Blood we have been redeemed.
St Maria Faustina Kowalska, pray for us.
Pope St John XXIII, pray for us.
Pope St John Paul II, pray for us.
Jesus, I trust in you, have mercy on us and on the whole world.
Yours in blessed hope,
 

+ Terence Patrick