Pastor's Reflection - April 9, 2026

Divine Mercy Sunday — An Experience From A Pilgrimage

Easter joy continues on this Second Sunday of Easter, celebrated as Divine Mercy Sunday. I want to share a brief memory from a pilgrimage I made to Poland in 2019 that helped me hear this feast more clearly.

Our small group of about 14 included my mother. As a longtime devotee of the Divine Mercy message, first introduced to me in seminary and deepened by my reading of St. Faustina’s Diary, I was thoroughly enjoying the pilgrimage. Then one day, while I was on my own for a time, I began reflecting on everything and grew quite irritated. I thought to myself: isn’t God’s mercy already clear in Scripture, as in Psalm 103, “The Lord is kind and merciful”? Scripture is filled with people encountering God's mercy. There really didn’t seem to be anything revolutionary about the message of Divine Mercy. Why then did a humble Polish nun bring this truth back to the Church’s attention?

The answer came gently: we are forgetful. Every generation, in small and large ways, drifts toward self-reliance, hardness of heart, and forgetfulness of God’s tender mercy. That forgetfulness is why the message of Divine Mercy is not redundant but necessary. The Church needs prophets, witnesses, and simple souls who point us back to the heart of the Gospel, that we cannot save ourselves and that God’s love pursues us relentlessly.

This Sunday is an invitation to remember and to become reminders. We need to receive the mercy of God offered to us through prayer and in the sacrament of Reconciliation. Many people have a mistaken image of God and live in a spirit of fear, afraid to approach the Lord for fear of judgment and condemnation.

Each of us is called to be a beacon, offering forgiveness, compassion, and concrete acts of mercy. Divine Mercy Sunday reminds us to commit to this message, which brings healing and redemption.

Let us invite the Holy Spirit to make us more attentive to the souls around us who live under the sentence of self-reliance and self-condemnation, and invite them to the fountain of mercy for healing and salvation.

In Christ,

Fr. James Northrop, Pastor