9 Days Until Canonization

Good Friday is a day of mystery in the Church. We mourn on this day, yet we know that the sadness in Christ’s suffering leads to great joy. We remember Christ’s trials, yet we do so in anticipation of his glorious Resurrection. We fast and abstain, yet we do so knowing that the feasting will come soon. This is the mystery of Christ’s mercy, which seems to shine most beautifully when humanity is at its worst.

Today we are nine days away from Divine Mercy Sunday, and we embark on a period of time in which Jesus asks us to pray a novena to His Divine Mercy for all souls. This devotion to Jesus’s Divine Mercy is something that Blessed John Paul II promoted during his pontificate, and he officially declared the Second Sunday of Easter to be “Divine Mercy Sunday” throughout the Church. He providentially passed away during the vigil of this feast, and next Sunday we will celebrate the Divine Mercy of the Lord with his canonization.

Because of his devotion to Jesus’s Divine Mercy, we at the Shrine decided that it would be appropriate to prepare for Blessed John Paul II’s canonization by praying the Divine Mercy Novena Jesus shared with St. Faustina Kowalska. For the next 9 days, we will pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet, offering up our prayers for the different souls that Jesus instructed us to remember.

So for Day 1, we begin by reflecting: 

Christ - the very fulfillment of the messianic prophecy - by becoming the incarnation of the love that is manifested with particular force with regard to the suffering, the unfortunate and sinners, makes present and thus more fully reveals the Father, who is God “rich in mercy.”

-Blessed John Paul II, Dives in Misericordia

Today, we begin our novena by remembering all of mankind, especially all sinners. Let us pray our chaplet, bringing these souls to Jesus and immersing them in the ocean of His mercy.