The Message of Mercy, the Message of the Church

God's amazing, merciful love for us has been proclaimed in the Bible, written about by the greatest saints of the Church, and pondered by popes leading up to our current Pontiff Benedict XVI.

VANCOUVER, B.C. (Catholic Online) - With this book, I really wanted to show that the message of Divine Mercy is something that the Church has been unfolding and developing from age to age, deepening our understanding and appreciation of this central mystery of our faith.

We are now the beneficiaries of all these centuries of reflection by popes, scholars, and saints alike.
My friend and fellow Divine Mercy devotee Fr. George Kosicki, CSB, once said that The Divine Mercy devotion is not so much about our devotion to God but rather, primarily, about His devotion to us.

God's amazing, merciful love for us has been proclaimed in the Bible, written about by the greatest saints of the Church, and pondered by popes leading up to our current Pontiff Benedict XVI.

The classroom origins of the book

The book came out of college lectures I did over the years, beginning with a course on Divine Mercy that I taught at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. Most of the students were Marian seminarians. As part of that course, I researched more in depth the theology of Divine Mercy and certain saints who have spoken about Divine Mercy. Then, I taught a broader course called "Catholic Theology and the Love of God" at Redeemer Pacific College.

Divine Mercy in Catholic theology

It became clear to me that this theme of the merciful love of God is something that actually could tie the whole Catholic faith together. This is something Fr. Michael Sopocko, St. Faustina's confessor, saw long ago. He wrote a big, four-volume study on the theme of mercy, covering basically every aspect of Catholic theology. So I had his example to begin with and drew upon it. Then, in teaching these themes and interacting with the students, I realized this wasn't just academic theory. Mercy really is the central theme for understanding scripture and the great teachings of the great theologians such as Aquinas and Augustine.

Saints of mercy

In addition to St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and, of course, St. Faustina, the book treats St. Catherine of Siena and St. Francis of Assisi. They are the ones who really emphasized the message of God's merciful love. But also, I wanted to show that the message of Divine Mercy has permeated every age and many nations and cultures. It is our common Catholic inheritance, not just an idiosyncrasy of Poland or of St. Faustina.

Announcing NEW Catholic Online News - Visit Today!

Some people think, "Oh, Divine Mercy. That means you have a special devotion to St. Faustina." Well, you could be devoted to Divine Mercy and have no devotion to St. Faustina. She's just one of a long stream of great saints who focused their lives on the merciful love of God.
Still, St. Faustina and her Diary stand out for a couple of reasons.

The first is that she draws together a lot of the threads in the Catholic spirituality of Divine Mercy. You can find in her Diary her devotion to the Heart of Jesus. You can find the way of spiritual childhood that we also see in St. Therese, the "Little Flower." You can find in her Ignatian meditation on the life of Christ. It's incredible how she synthesizes Catholic spirituality -- almost everything that's come before.

Second, through the things that were revealed to her, like the image of The Divine Mercy, the Feast of Mercy, and the Chaplet of The Divine Mercy, she has given the world an expression of Divine Mercy, a way of Divine Mercy touching our hearts in a way that seems to be really well suited to our times and really enables people to understand it and appreciate it.

This is a book for everyone

Though it can be happily read by anybody, individually, I was really hoping it would be useful for groups who want to study together the message of mercy. Primarily people who are involved in Divine Mercy groups or parish groups that want to explore Divine Mercy. The book is arranged so that it can be used for group discussion. I can see it being a great tool, say, for a parish group wishing to dig into Divine Mercy for Lent, or a Eucharistic Apostles of The Divine Mercy cenacle that has already gone through the formation manuals and then wanted to dig into things in a different way.

Divine Mercy, the message for our times

Pope John Paul II said it best. He identified the fact that we live in an age marked by hopelessness. These circumstances, I think, were inevitable when considering the choices western cultures have made. From the time of the French Revolution, our civilization has tried to understand the universe and solve the world's problems without reference to Jesus Christ. The so-called "Enlightenment" has led to the mess we are in now. Humanly speaking, if all we have is our own wits to draw upon, our situation is hopeless.

Secret Archives of the Saints, Subscribe Today

Unless we turn to The Divine Mercy, we don't have hope. He said that hope is the cure, and the basis of that hope can only be the merciful love of God. If we have to rely on our own resources, we're sunk. I think that explains best why the message is so urgent. Divine Mercy isn't going to answer every question about economics or foreign affairs, but unless you have an underlying hope, unless you're praying with trust and relying on the strength of God, mankind can't face its problems. Not only mankind in general, but we as individuals, facing the crosses of living in the modern world.

In a certain sense, I think mankind has been brought to the end of its rope, or has been allowed by God to come to the end of its rope. It has lived out, especially in the 20th century, the end result of trying to -- in the words of Frank Sinatra -- "do it my way." And hopefully we realize the situation is not hopeless. It's only hopeless when we rely only on ourselves.

Sometimes coming to the end of your rope is not a disaster, but an opportunity, and that's what I think is happening now.

Dr. Robert Stackpole, STD, is Associate Professor of Theology at Redeemer Pacific College in Langley, and also the director of the Marians' John Paul II Institute of Divine Mercy.

---

'Help Give every Student and Teacher FREE resources for a world-class Moral Catholic Education'