We are today on the last day of the novena in preparation for the feast of Divine Mercy
tomorrow.
In fact, this whole day here at the farm is dedicated to reflection on our Lord's Divine
Mercy.
Therefore, in this homily, I'd like to focus on the reason why our Lord wants this feast
in the church, why the church, with her own authority, has instituted this feast on what
will be tomorrow, the second Sunday of Easter, or the Sunday after Easter Sunday.
I think there are two basic reasons that we can look to, look for, the reason for this
particular message, this particular devotion in our times.
This isn't an authoritative answer, although we take, try to quote from the diary here
of St. Faustina.
The first reason is because now is the time of mercy, but this time will end.
It's a time that's limited in its duration, and this time is running out because we are
approaching closer and closer to the time of judgment.
We don't know really what it means that the end times are near for our Lord.
A thousand years, like one day, we could still have a long history ahead of us, as contradictory
as that might sound.
There might be still a lot of years left of the world, but nevertheless, we are constantly
approaching that final day, the day of judgment, and the time of mercy is running out.
So our Lord is calling us to have recourse to his mercy while there's time for mercy,
and I'll just quote to you from a few places in the diary where our Lord says exactly that.
He says, I am prolonging the time of mercy for the sake of sinners, but woe to them if
they do not recognize this time of my visitation.
My daughter, secretary of mercy, your duty is not only to write about and proclaim my
mercy, but also to beg for this grace for them so that they too may glorify my mercy.
And also our Lord says, write this, before I come as a just judge, I first open wide
the door of my mercy.
He who refuses to pass through the door of my mercy must pass through the door of my
justice.
So our Lord in his time is pointing to that open door of mercy and saying, okay, it's
open right now, wide open, but time is running out.
Walk through it while there is still time because that time is limited.
And our lady speaking to St. Faustina also urges her to proclaim the message of mercy.
She says, you have to speak to the world about my son's great mercy and prepare the world
for the second coming of him who will come not as a merciful savior, but as a just judge.
Oh, how terrible is that day.
Determined is the day of justice, the day of divine wrath.
The angels tremble before it.
So speak to souls about this great mercy while it is still the time for granting mercy.
If you keep silent now, you will be answering for a great number of souls on that terrible
day.
So I would point to that as the first reason that the church puts so much emphasis on this
call to mercy.
It's the church itself that has proclaimed tomorrow as the Sunday of divine mercy and
in fact grants special graces, indulgences for those who honor our Lord, especially in
his image of the merciful savior.
And the second reason that I would suggest is that because as the time of mercy is running
out, and again, remember, I'm not trying to be apocalyptic here.
I'm not saying that it's running out, so tomorrow's the last day of the world.
No, I'm not saying that.
Again, we might still have many years ahead of us, but nevertheless, again, so just from
the beginning of this homily till now, we have less time of mercy and we're closer to
the time of judgment.
In that sense, the time of mercy is running out.
The day of justice is approaching.
And as all this is happening, the gravity of sins around us is increasing exponentially.
So there does seem to be an escalation of that battle foretold by God in Genesis 315
between the woman and her offspring and the serpent and its offspring, and it's escalating.
So the sins that are being proposed and imposed on Christians are more and more grievous.
I think that's objectively undebatable.
And at the same time, the word mercy is being abused to the great confusion and detriment
of souls.
There's a, I think, it's also objective that there is a false mercy that's being offered.
The name mercy is used, but without the content of real mercy.
So things along these lines are being said that really there's nothing to forgive, and
that's mercy.
So God's mercy consists in telling you that there is nothing to forgive.
You simply have no sins.
What used to be sin is no longer sin.
What seemed a sin is not really a sin.
So that's a false mercy that's being advertised today, right?
And it's easy to fall for that.
Who wouldn't want to hear that?
Oh, my sin isn't actually sinful.
Great, because I liked it to begin with, so I love to hear that.
Or that sin is not as bad as we think.
And guess what?
That's God's mercy.
Now he's just not going to treat us like adults, you know, like, yeah, your sin is just not
as bad, or I'm just not going to hold you accountable for it.
I don't expect you to overcome your sin.
I'm just such a good God.
I'm just going to leave you in your misery, right?
And that would be God's mercy, whereas we know that isn't.
And in fact, you read the diary of St. Faustina, he almost seems harsh with St. Faustina in
rebuking her for her sins, and hers were really trivial, it might seem, but for our
Lord, who wants us to become saints, there's no sin that's really little.
Again, a false mercy that makes us think that God doesn't care about sin, you know, like
these commandments, they're just, they stand in the way, like, between our relationship
with God.
There's us, there's God, and then there's all these commandments that get in the way,
and man-made rules, God doesn't care about that.
Guess what?
That's mercy.
There's no punishment to fear, that would be another false mercy.
There's no need to change, because there's no punishment to fear.
So there's all these, you know, all these dimensions, all these flavors of false mercy
today.
And in response to that, our Lord emphasizes true mercy, because there is very much to
forgive, there is a lot to be forgiven of.
There, you know, we have sins, people in the world have sins, something needs to be forgiven,
that's mercy.
It acknowledges there is a sin to be forgiven.
There can be grievous sins that need to be forgiven, we need to acknowledge them.
And where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more, God's power shows itself in forgiving
even the most grievous of sins.
And our Lord tells us, sin is far worse than we think, it does far more harm to us than
we realize.
When we sin, we do far more harm to others than we realize.
Again, if you read the diary, it's a little, I don't want to use the word dark, because
again, it's just not the right adjective, but one that comes to mind, wow, it's very
much, it's very much a Lord rebuking the sinfulness of the world, offering mercy, but speaking
very harshly about the world, and even St. Felistina's venial sins, you know, he doesn't
want her to be comfortable in her little sins, he's constantly calling her to more.
And because again, God's emphasis on mercy emphasizes that God detests sin and wants
the conversion of sinners, he wants them to stop committing their sins.
Mercy again is a call to change, a radical change.
And mercy is the grace to be radically changed.
God meets you where you're at, but doesn't leave you there.
Wow.
God meets you and finds you broken and puts the pieces back together.
That's true mercy.
There's something broken, there's something sinful, there's something rotten, and God cures
and heals all that.
And also God punishes if we do not repent of it, and there are consequences.
We are adults, we're made in the image and likeness of God, we are respond-able.
Our Lord reminds us of that in the diary as well.
We have to respond for our actions, either now, when there's time for mercy, or when
that runs out, when it's time for justice.
So in this time of proliferation of disorder and confusion, and without naming these crazy
sins that are finding more and more citizenship in the world, without naming all of them in
this time of great confusion and greater pressure to, if not at least commit these sins, at
least to approve them.
So again, these temptations are very subtle, right?
The tribulation in the final age, at the final time, will be very subtle.
So today, a lot of the sins that are, again, have gained citizenship in the world against
sexual morals and the family, and even just reality, just the sins against reality, don't
necessarily propagate by getting more and more people to commit them, but they propagate
also by getting more and more people to approve of them.
You don't have to commit this crazy, insane sin, you just have to approve of it and say,
it's okay for others to do so.
I'm inclusive, I'm tolerant, I'm affirmative, right?
So just approve other sins, and that's sufficient, you know?
Just quit calling it a sin, in fact, call it something good.
So again, so under all this pressure, we need to have all the more trust in God's infinite
mercy to forgive and to preserve, because mercy has these two dimensions always.
Our Lord forgives those who have fallen, preserves those with their whole heart that want to
fall.
We need to have trust, and again, with all these pressures, our Lord will forgive those
who have fallen, preserve those who do not wish to fall.
And especially at these times, again, without being apocalyptic here, but just whatever,
these times, you know what, these times might be nothing compared with the final times,
you know?
But I'm just saying, these times are probably crazier than recent times.
Our Lord says about the final times, at that time, there will be a great tribulation, such
as has not been since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will be.
And if those days had not been shortened, no one would be saved.
But for the sake of the elect, they will be shortened.
If it wasn't for the sake of the elect, for the sake of those who invoke and trust God's
mercy, no one would be saved.
Wow, tribulation would be crazy.
If it wasn't for the sake of the elect, those who trust that God liberates and preserves
from sin, nobody would resist that tribulation.
Nobody would stand up to that pressure.
Nobody would resist it.
Nobody would be able to overcome it.
And I think we can say that the greater the number of those who have recourse to mercy,
the more our Lord will shorten those days and the more souls will be saved.
But again, we need to have trust that our Lord will intervene for the sake of the elect,
for the sake of those who trust in him.
So last point, we talked about two reasons why this emphasis on mercy, this particular
emphasis on mercy.
Now just briefly, let's close with the image and with our blessed lady.
Because part of this devotion, a very conspicuous part of this devotion, is the image of our
Lord, the merciful savior who points to his heart from which come rays, blood and water.
And underneath, Jesus, I trust in you.
Now we have this image, or this image makes sense to us because there was somebody there
at the foot of the cross to see our Lord's side pierced with a lance and to see that
blood and water flow from his side.
Somebody saw that happening the first time so that these images now make sense to us
today.
Who was that person?
Well, that person was our blessed lady, of course.
If we have such a close-up image of divine mercy and of the mercy coming from the heart
of our savior, it's because our lady saw with her own eyes and she had Saint John at her
side who later became the gospel writer who wrote of that in his gospel.
In fact, it's a very pious, I don't even want to say speculation, it's a very pious
belief that Saint John was there at the foot of the cross to write what he saw because
at our Lord's arrest, when our Lord was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, the first thing
he did was to run to tell our blessed lady so that the news wouldn't reach her in some
harsh and heartless way and so that she would be informed by a loving disciple.
Even our lady, of course, took Saint John and followed our Lord, not like Saint Peter
from afar, but from very close up.
The difference between Saint Peter and Saint John, Saint John was close to our lady and
followed our Lord closely.
It's because of her that he was, he had his place on Calvary and saw that blood and water
pour out from the heart of our savior for the first time.
So if we wish to have access to mercy, we need to ask our lady to bring us there with
her to Calvary.
Again, there's no competition between Jesus and Mary.
If we stay close to our lady, what happens?
We just get closer to the cross.
We get closer to the heart of the savior.
We just have VIP access to divine mercy.
And the closer we get to the cross, the more our Lord speaks to us as he did to Saint John,
behold your mother.
He gives us that gift, that one more gift, as Saint Maximilian would say, of consecration
to his mother.
Our lady, therefore, the more we draw close to her, the more she will give us a deep understanding
of our Lord's mercy, the more she will bring us closer to our Lord, and the more our Lord
will give us devotion to his mother.
Never against each other, never in competition, but one leads to the other.
So as we prepare ourselves again tomorrow for this feast of divine mercy, let's be thankful
for this gift of mercy.
Let's be responsible in our use of God's mercy.
Time is running out.
We have to use God's mercy, have recourse to his mercy while we have time, and let us
ask our lady to bring us close, very close to the open heart of the savior, just to draw
abundantly the blood and the water.
Let's recourse and confession, and by means of these sacraments, our Lord's mercy in abundance
for ourselves, for our loved ones, and for the whole world.
Praised be Jesus and Mary.
Amen.

Amen.