The Divine Mercy festivities were well attended on Sunday at Our Lady of Ephesus House of Prayer in Jamaica, Vermont. I spoke to about 120 people on the mystery of Easter and Divine Mercy.
One thing I pointed out is how revelations of Our Lord to Saint Faustina about the Feast of Mercy utilizes time. We all know about the chaplet and the Hour of Mercy. Well, the Novena to the Divine Mercy leading up to the Feast begins on Good Friday, the historical Hour of Mercy, which in turn is part of the Easter Triduum that culminates the Season of Lent and begins the Season of Easter. The Feast itself comes on the Octave Day of Easter as a kind of grand finale of the Paschal mysteries as they are liturgically celebrated. All of these periods of time are pointing the the eternal Easter of paradise and solemnize our participation in the Redemptive and Eucharistic Sacrifices. Our hope is Easter, even as now we are more often in Lent and in the Hour of Mercy, the Hour of Suffering.
Our Lord points out to Saint Faustina that now is the Time of Mercy–now, as we continue to breathe. Beyond the veil of death, where time will end, there is no mercy, only justice. for God is a just judge, who will render to every man according to his works (Romans 2:6). The Message of Divine Mercy is supposed to instill confidence in all of us, but we need to understand the dimensions and character of Divine Mercy.
One day the sun will set on time for all of us. We continue to repeat the cycles of time, not only every year, but every week and day. The seven day cycle of the week beginning on Sunday, repeats over and over. The Day of the Lord where we give to God the first fruits of our lives looks foward to Our Lord’s second coming, when the seven day cycle of time will come to an end, and a new day will dawn, an Eighth Day that will never end. The ancient roman baptismal fonts were all octagonal, calling to mind our birth into new life, a life which looks forward to the bliss of eternity.
Each evening when the sun sets, we all lay down to sleep in a dress rehearsal for death and the Church prays: May the all powerful Lord, grant us a restful night and a peaceful death. Our sleep looks forward to the dawn and our hearts yearn for the final dawn of the Eternal Day.
Lord, for the sake of your sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.
Here is a group shot with yours truly on the left, and then Don and Mary Tarinelli, the founders of the House of Prayer, with Father Marco Hurtado, priest of the Diocese of Newark, NJ, and Fra Solanus in the front and Fra Didacus all the way on the right.
It was a great grace to be invited by Don and Mary to preach. I highly recommend a visit to Our Lady’s House, you won’t be disappointed. It was also a pleasure to meet Fr. Marco and spend some time with him.
Here are couple of great photographs that Fra Didacus took. (He really is a camera bug!) The first is the replica of Our Lady’s House in Ephesus and the second is the lighted Cross on the House of Prayer property. Click on the thumbnail. I uploaded a larger file, since it is such and awesome photo.
Mary Victrix 
Welcome back and it looks like you had a wonderful time … still lots of snow there I see. Well, this is the first year that I ever did the Novena to the Divine Mercy. In fact, I never really knew much about it before. A number of years ago, my husband and I managed to get away for a weekend in the Berkshires and we were looking for a place to attend Mass and fell upon the Divine Mercy Center there … we shamefully had NO idea what the place was all about. Anyway, I feel Our Lady must have led us there and I’ve had a curiousity about it ever since. Yet, I never really understood much about Sr. Faustina and whether her meetings with Mary were ever accepted by the Vatican. But, I’ve come to understand that they were and so I’ve been trying to learn more about it.
One thing you mentioned above is about the second coming of Christ. This always confuses me. I thought that Catholics believed that Christ’s second coming was NOW and that it was the protestants that believed in a different second coming. Something about post-millenialism vs pre-millenialism. Again, I must humbly admit that I know precious little about all of this. Can you explain?
Blessings,
Jen
Its great to hear it turned out well!
Jennifer,
The Catechism speaks of the second coming of Christ in numbers 668-679. The Church teaches that there are two historical “comings’ of Christ, once in the flesh at Bethlehem, and once in glory at the end of time to judge the living and the dead, as we recite in the Creed.
There is also a kind of middle “coming” which is now for each of us, especially at the moment of our death. The end of the world for us individually does not necessarily coincide with the final moment of time.
None of this is to be confused with millennialist idea that Christ is coming to reign on earth for a thousand years before the end of the world, which is definitely a heresy. Premillennialism is a specific form of Millennialism, in which the Second Coming of Christ is expected to precede the thousand year reign, where Christ Himself in the flesh will be present, and which will be followed by the Final Judgment. Postmillennialism, on the other hand, posits the thousand year reign prior to the Second Coming. In Postmillennnialism Christ will reign through the Church and will only come again after the thousand years for the Last Judgment.
The Catechism in number 676 reads thus on the question of Millenialism:
We celebrated Divine Mercy for the first time in our Parish and it turned out quite lovely and solemn. No one knew the words to the song except one other lady. The piano was drowning her out. So I bravely got up, knelt beside her and song as loud as I could in front of our Lord. I’ve never song for anyone before. I hope he was well pleased. We had Benidiction as well. Who could ask for more!
P.S, Glad to hear that Divine Mercy turned out well for you as well. p.s.s miss the snow!