On Us and on the Whole World

This Sunday we celebrate the (relatively) new feast of Divine Mercy. As you may know, the Divine Mercy Chaplet and this devotion to Jesus under the title of Divine Mercy has its roots in Poland.

St. Faustina Kowalska, who died just before the invasion of the Nazis in 1939, received this image of Jesus in prayer. He asked her to have it painted and to tell the world of His burning desire to pour His Mercy out on the whole world.

Divine Mercy

And Poland would need this gift in the decades to come.

Recently I was meditating on the Healing of the Paralytic with some 4th-6th graders in our CGS Level 3 atrium. In that instance, Jesus asked the question to the incredulous bystanders: "Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’?" Luke 5:23.

One of the girls thought it was definitely easier to say, "Your sins are forgiven." As we thought about it, we realized that any of us could say whatever we wanted to the paralyzed man, but it wouldn't heal him. We could tell him to rise and walk all day, but he'd still lay there, paralyzed. It seemed that Jesus was trying to make a connection between the man's paralysis and his sin. He was stuck and could not move without God's action.

"But I can forgive people," the girl insisted. "I may not be able to heal their body, but I can stop being angry. I can forgive."
We thought about this together for several minutes. Why is it easy for me to forgive? When is it easy for me to forgive? We talked about Pope St. John Paul II forgiving his would-be assassin who shot him point blank several times. Was that easy? Maybe it would be easier for me to say powerless words like "Rise and walk" before I could say the words "I forgive you" and mean it. Sometimes it is we who are paralyzed because we are unable to forgive.

As I reflect on the wisdom of God in His gift of the Divine Mercy image, chaplet, and devotion, I see the Divine Physician at work: healing Poland, which could have been paralyzed in hate and anger, but instead brought forth some of the greatest saints of modern times. He can do the same in our lives, if we let His Mercy flow into us and heal us, but more than that, if we let it flow through us to others.

"Have Mercy on us, and on the whole world."