This is Next Sunday...

...and that would be Divine Mercy Sunday. Divine Mercy Sunday (the first Sunday after Easter) celebrates the abundant love of God the Father, given to us through Christ's sacrificial death on the cross. By this complete offering of himself, Christ opened the complete outpouring of the love of God the Father-- love which forgives sins and offers us to become sharers in His divine life in heaven. Truly, by Christ's life and death, we become destined to be God's "sons and daughters" (2 Cor 6:18); saved from eternal darkness and death, given purest love. This filial adoption is brought by an ocean of mercy, an ocean of love. As we are baptized by water into the faith, God embraces (and not condemns) our humanity. Thus, as he reaches out in loving splendor for us, we are invited (just as fathers invite sons and as mothers invite daughters) to be embraced and to share this love with others. His love and his mercy are deeper than any ocean! This Sunday, let us find joy in this love and this mercy. Let us be able to say that Christ's sacrifice was sacrifice for the totality of us. Once and for all. Let us trust this gift and find peace. "Jesus, I trust in you."

Oh great ocean of mercy!
I have uncovered a stone from my sandy beach
and cast it headlong into your crashing waves!
Tell me, great depth, what shall you do now?

Will you at last end your barrage
and let the phalanx of merciful waves desist?
Will you not see what I have done
and desert this relentless crave?

Certainly, you must have felt something!—
nevertheless you crash besides.
But, did you not settle for just a bit?—
yet my rock, and others, you possess.

Then, most infuriating creature,
you are a never-ending wall!
A frustrating, obstinate, and prideful child
who takes and never gives!

But… you approach. And approach again:
lapping water and an occasional starfish upon the shore.
(Be near me feet, else you get washed!)
Yet, with one big wave you make thoughts moot.

O embracing ocean! circling ‘round,
I shall fight no more, else I will drown.
O destroy my wall, (please forgive!),
and let your love abound!


~Anthony Gerber