News - April 2022 RSS Feed

Dear Parishioners and Friends of Divine Mercy Parish, ​​​​​​​ In 2017, Matthew Kelly, noted Catholic author, speaker, and founder of the “Dynamic Catholic” movement, began a campaign called “5,000,000 Rosaries for America.” Looking back to the dreams of America’s Founding Fathers for freedom, equality, and lives full of happiness and opportunity, Matthew wrote: “Amidst the hustle and bustle of our daily lives, we have lost sight of this dream. Today in America, we have bigger houses, but smaller families; better technology, but worse connection; fully loaded cars, but empty churches; more education, but less common sense. We strive for peace, but violence is rampant...

​​​​Rejoice with me! Rejoice in the mercy of God coming into our hearts through our redemption in Jesus Christ! Alleluia! The fullness of Easter joy is captured by a vivid description of Easter as the eighth day of creation. In the book of Genesis, we read that God created the entire splendor that surrounds us in six days, and on the seventh day, He rested. The eighth day of creation refers to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In the rising of Jesus from the dead, the world experiences the first day of a new creation. In 2000, Saint John Paul II designated the second Sunday of Easter, which is the eighth and final day of the Easter Octave, as Divine Mercy Sunday. When he did so, he used an expression filled with great significance. He called Divine Mercy “the hermeneutical crown of the final day of creation.”

On Good Friday, we arrive at the day that all of human history had been barreling toward since God promised to crush the head of the serpent in Gen 3:15. The day when Jesus, the very Son of God, the man who had never defied God’s law, was crucified in the way usually reserved for the worst criminals in the Roman Empire. By this horrible death, He paid the price for our sin “once for all when He offered up Himself” (Heb 7:27). 

Palm Sunday is the celebration of the commemoration of the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, the city of the King. What is the significance of the triumphal entry? The story of the triumphal entry is one of the few incidents in the life of Jesus which appears in all four Gospel accounts (Matthew 21:1-17; Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:29-40; John 12:12-19).  Putting the four accounts together, it becomes clear that the triumphal entry was a significant event, not only to the people of Jesus’ day, but to Christians throughout history.