Divine Mercy Sunday celebrations to be livestreamed

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Divine Mercy Sunday events in the Diocese of Salt Lake City will be livestreamed this year. Shown is a fi le photo from the celebration at St. Thomas More parish in 2015.

SALT LAKE CITY — Last year, the Ogden community celebrated its fi rst Divine Mercy Sunday event, with more than 500 people gathering at St. James the Just Catholic Church to recite the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy, receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and attend Mass with Bishop Oscar A. Solis presiding.Meanwhile, at St. Thomas More Parish in Cottonwood Heights, hundreds more attended the annual Divine Mercy Sunday celebration that has taken place there for the past several years.

This year, the plan was for those parishes, joined by St. Mary of the Assumption Parish in Park City, to coordinate their eff orts to draw even more people to the celebrations in their area, but that was cancelled because of the social distancing requirements called for by the coronavirus pandemic.

Instead, the Divine Mercy celebration on Sunday, April 19, will be observed remotely, through livestreaming, at the parishes of St. Thomas More and St. James the Just. St. Mary of the Assumption Parish has cancelled its Divine Mercy Sunday observation.

Divine Mercy Sunday commemorates the experiences of Faustina Kowalska, a sister of the Congregation of Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, who lived in Poland in the early 20th century. St. Faustina is said to have been personally visited by the Savior many times from 1934 to 1938. She recorded the visits in her diary, which was published in 1981.

During one visit, the Savior showed himself to Faustina in a vision as the risen Lord, from whose heart shone two rays, one red (representing blood) and the other “pale” (symbolizing water), with the words “Jesus, I trust in you” at the bottom. He asked that the image be painted and venerated throughout the world. He also asked that a feast day be established.

“I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and shelter for all souls, and especially poor sinners. On that day all the divine fl oodgates through which graces fl ow are opened. The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion shall obtain the complete forgiveness of sins and punishment. Let no soul fear to draw near to me, even though its sins be as scarlet,” Jesus told St. Faustina (Diary, 699).

In 2000 Faustina was canonized; at that time Pope John Paul II directed that the Second Sunday of Easter be known as Divine Mercy Sunday.

“This was precisely the time when those ideologies of evil, Nazism and communism, were taking shape,” Pope John Paul II wrote in “Memory and Identity” about Sr. Faustina’s experiences. “Sister Faustina became the herald of the one message capable of off - setting the evil of those ideologies, that fact that God is mercy – the truth of the merciful Christ. And for this reason, when I was called to the See of Peter, I felt impelled to pass on those experiences of a fellow Pole that deserve a place in the treasury of the universal Church. “

At St. James the Just Parish, there will be livestreamed exposition and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at 2 p.m. The Divine Mercy Chaplet will be recited at 2:50 p.m., followed by Benediction. St. Thomas More Parish will livestream its Divine Mercy Sunday observances. Music will be provided by Vince Clark. Details are still being worked out; contact the parish for information.