Father Joseph Illo gave a 15-minute homily on Sunday, April 16 at Star of the Sea church in San Francisco, where he is the pastor.
“I see many people receiving he sacrament of Penance. You may want to mention to Father Michael that there’s a line all the way out to Geary Boulevard. Sometimes Father Michael is a little thorough in the confessional.
“Today is Mercy Sunday. Our Lord said these words to Saint Faustina (these words are from her diary): ‘I want the image solemnly blessed on the first Sunday after Easter. And I want it to be venerated publicly so that every soul may know about it.’
“St. Faustina had her extraordinary graces, visions from Our Lord, in the 1930s, between the two wars… John Paul II, in obedience to her private revelations, established the feast of Divine Mercy in the year 2000, six days after he canonized Sister Faustina. He wrote these words: ‘This was precisely the time with those ideologies of evil, Nazism and Communism, were taking shape. Sister Faustina became the herald of the one message capable of offsetting the evil of those ideologies ≠ the fact that God is merciful….’
15-second excerpt:
“Every one of us is going to Hell, if someone doesn’t rescue us on the way down. The mercy is a river flowing from the open side of Jesus. We must receive if we are to give mercy.”
Click the link to the full homily. the first 30 seconds is hysterical.
The text of the prohibition against the “Divine Mercy” devotion, appeared in the Vatican’s official collection of authoritative documents,
the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, vol. 51 (1959
Because of faulty translations from the original Polish, St. Faustina Kowalska’s writings were considered doctrinally suspect, and so the Holy See suppressed the Divine Mercy devotion arising from those writings for about twenty years. Once the translations were corrected, the ban was lifted. The reversal of the suppression depended heavily upon the work of the Cardinal Archbishop of Krakow (Poland); the same year that the suppression was lifted (1978), that cardinal was elected pope and took the name John Paul II
From Catholic Answers
I disagree. I tried reading the diary. It’s full of saccharinely pious claptrap. Just read the New Testament. I know people whose devotion to Divine Mercy is superstitious. They think by adoring the Divine Mercy image they are guaranteed heaven because that’s what Faustina promised in her diary.
” I tried reading the diary. It’s full of saccharinely pious claptrap. Just read the New Testament. ” During a hospitalization, I took the Diary with me and was most comforted by Sr. Faustina’s extraordinary devotion. She was a very rare soul who was able to give herself to Jesus with a depth very far beyond my reach, so to speak. It hurts me to see her writings so denigrated when they have proved so helpful. That said, the New Testament was doubtless on Sr. Faustina’s list of favorites as well.
I do not agree that it is claptrap. It is love but in the beginning there is a lot of self-abasement.
It is not about being guaranteed heaven if you adore the Divine Mercy image.
It is about having confidence in the Mercy of Christ.
It is about adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and an understanding of the economy of salvation.
Maybe you should try to read it again.