Divine Mercy Monday - New Evangelizers

It’s no wonder that devotion to Divine Mercy continues to grow in popularity. After all, who wouldn’t be attracted to a Jesus who is depicted as “love and mercy itself”? Let’s face it, hearing that there is no one and nothing that is beyond God’s mercy seems almost too good to be true. But that pretty much is the truth about God, isn’t it? God actually is that good, that loving, that merciful.

Most of us take a cue from the Sunday after Easter and focus on receiving God’s mercy in our lives. We recognize the ways in which we resonate more with Thomas’ doubt than with his faith. We pray that the sorrowful passion of Christ will flood our souls with the mercy that radiates as light from his open heart. Many of us pray the chaplet or novena, go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and seek the mercy of God. That’s all good.

But then comes Monday. And Tuesday. And the rest of the days and weeks and months of daily life with all its difficulties. And somehow, the ocean mercy we received doesn’t overflow through us to others.That grudge I don’t want to give up? That inability to be sorry for something I did? That hurt I won’t let go of because it ’s how I justify keeping someone at a distance? Those are the things that dam up the unconditional love that was so easily available to us in Christ. And true to the old use-it-or-lose-it adage, when we try to hold on to the graces of God for ourselves rather than give them away, we begin to lose what we most wanted to keep.

Holding back mercy doesn’t just compromise our witness to faith, it keeps us stuck in the spiritual life, and sucks the life—eternal life—right out of us. As we move past the Feast of Divine Mercy, let’s remember that every one of us is called to a mission of mercy as apostles of what we have received. God is mercy. Anything that is not merciful in us, is not of God.

© Jaymie Stuart Wolfe, 2017

Jaymie Stuart Wolfe

Author of Adoption: Room for One More? (2015), Jaymie Stuart Wolfe is a Catholic convert, wife, and mother of eight mostly-grown children. She has written and edited numerous books for both adults and kids, and works for Our Sunday Visitor as an Acquisitions Editor. Under Loaves and Fishes Ministry, Jaymie reaches out through word and song as an author, columnist, speaker, and musician. She is a co-founder of Live + Jesus, a group embracing the spirituality of Saint Francis de Sales and promoting the Works of Mercy in daily life. A graduate of Harvard University, Jaymie also holds a Master of Arts in Ministry degree from St. John's Seminary in Boston. Jaymie lives in Massachusetts with her husband and family (and a continually evolving menagerie of exotic and ordinary animals). Follow Jaymie @YouFeedThem or connect on FB, Amazon, Goodreads.