Haec est dies quam fecit Dominus exultemus et laetemur in ea....

This is the day when adulterers end their adulterous relationships. This is the day when fornicators cease their extra-marital dalliances, those co-habiting set wedding dates and/or boot each other out of their flats until marriage. This is the day when thieves and brigands hand back the spoils of their crime and do penance. This is the day when the mean and avaricious learn generosity to the poor. This is the day when abortionists repent of their crimes and those who have procured them seek the height, the depth and the inexhaustible riches of God's mercy.

This is the day, indeed, when mafiosi bosses put down their guns and open hospitals for poor, sick children instead. This is the day when alcoholics, crack and smack heads take up the Cross and join the relevant anonymous meeting groups, when those who watch porn take a hammer to their laptop, when those who frequent houses of iniquity consider renting property outside of the city centre.

This is the day when the single re-dedicate themselves to lives of celibacy, the married to devotion, constancy and fidelity, priests to singular devotion to Our Lord and His Blessed Mother and all Catholics throw themselves on God's mercy, receiving His Absolution in Confession and His Body and Blood in Holy Communion.

This is the day when Shepherds preach the truths of our sinful proclivities and the Salvation on offer to us and teach the faithful to guard against mortal sin. This is the day when manipulative prelates and those who bully clergy pursue the path of justice and peace towards those in their care and put Christ and His Church first, renouncing their own agendas and holding their tongues only at those times when the Gospel demands it. This is the day when German Church tax collectors, like St Matthew, renounce their old way of life and pursue, with singular apostolic zeal, the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Allelulia! Allelulia! Allelulia!

This is the day, this is Divine Mercy Sunday, the Second Sunday of Easter, in which the Church, because of the unfathomable Mercy of Her Divine Bridegroom, opens the floodgates of His Mercy for sinners, that we might repent of our sins and find in Jesus Christ not a severe Judge, but a merciful Saviour, whose desire is not to punish us according to our transgressions, but bring us to the inheritance of His Saints, Eternal Life in the Presence of God forever, forever united to Him, Body and Soul.

There have been a lot of strange things said about mercy recently, some things that are authentic and some that do not seem very authentic. Mercy does not gloss over our sin but entreats us to be confronted by our sin, to confront ourselves and to seek, in sincerity of heart, the God of Mercy. It always involves us turning away from our sin and turning towards the Lord. It means recognising that we need to, that we want to make a break with that which enslaves us and recognising that Jesus alone can liberate us from sin.

Apologies for all readers for not posting up the song below earlier. I know that all readers will appreciate just what a beautiful hymn this is, communicating so eloquently the joy of Easter and the mystery of our redemption!

The Papal Bull for the Extraordinary Year of Mercy can be read here. 

Immediate and somewhat worrying commentary can be read here.

I hope those 'missionaries of mercy' are not the kind that the Franciscans of the Immaculate have had to endure.