Biblical Divine Mercy

from various sources

The Father's Most Merciful Act was sending His Only-begotten Son to dispense Divine Mercy for all generations

      Mercy is that attribute of God which illuminates all the other attributes of God in celestial light. Mercy embodies God, brings God into focus for us, His children. Mercy beckons to us, holds out its arms to us, seeks to shield us from the ravages of sin and weakness and the moral decay of society in which we live. But does man seek Mercy? Does he even want it or does he equate Mercy with weakness? There are those who, by Divine Light and Grace, have understood Divine Mercy and have acted upon God's voice whispering in their heart to bring Mercy to all mankind.

      The greatest Mercy was after the fall of Adam and Eve when God began making plans to redeem mankind. The first we see of His manifested Mercy is Noah when the Lord warned him ahead of time and in His Mercy preserved mankind through the obedience of the ark-builders. Then there was Abraham whose obedience paid off in God's Merciful granting that his son Isaac should live. In his place Abraham took a lamb from the thorns and sacrificed it to God, a forerunner of the Lamb of God being led to the shelter with a crown of thorns around His Head. Then there was Lot in Genesis 19 when the Angel warns him of the impending doom of Sodom and Gomorrah and leads he and his family "through the mercy of the Lord" out of the city, even though his wife missed God's Mercy and looked back. It was an indication of the Almighty's equal possession of Mercy and Justice. Then we see Mercy in action again with Joseph who returns mercy to his brothers in Egypt; then Moses and the Divine Mercy shown God's chosen people leading them out of Egypt. In Deuteronomy 5:9-10 God conveys to Moses "For I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishments for their father's wickedness on the children of those who hate Me, down to the third and fourth generation; but bestowing Mercy, down to the thousandth generation, on the children of those who love Me and keep My commandments." Here we see both God's Justice and Mercy. His Divine Mercy is reaffirmed by David in both 2Kings and countless times throughout the Psalms as well as other passages of the Old Testament including several times in 2Paralipomenon/Chronicles as Solomon brought the Ark of the Covenant into the Temple in Jerusalem, praising God saying "Give glory to the Lord for He is good, for His Mercy endureth forever" (2Paralipomenon/Chronicles 5:13) and God responded in kind. We also see Job submit totally to the Divine Mercy of God in Job 37:12, "whether for punishment or mercy, as He commands" and the prophet Isaiah constantly calls down Divine Mercy on mankind as do the prophets Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Jonah, Micah, Habakkuk and Zechariah.

The Font of Divine Mercy is made possible through the fiat of the Two Hearts

      Mercy took on a new meaning with the advent of the Savior Jesus Christ and the New Covenant He preached, beginning when He was calling Matthew to become one of His Apostles as He outlined His mission: "It is not the healthy who need a physician, but they who are sick. But go, and learn what this means: 'I desire Mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have come to call sinners, not the just." However, even before this it was the Second Eve - His very Own Blessed Mother, while carrying Him in her womb, who conveyed to her cousin Elizabeth at the Visitation her Magnificat proclaiming all God had said in the Old Testament, "and His Mercy is from generation to generation on those who fear Him" (Luke 1:50). The greatest Mercy shown by God was to give us all His dear Mother at the foot of the Cross when Jesus said first to Mary "Woman, behold thy son." and then to John, "Behold, thy mother" (John 19:26-27). With these few words He was bestowing His Mother on His children, specifically His Church to watch over, guide and protect, and through His "beloved disciple" which was, in a sense, all of us, asking us to accept His Mother as our Mother for she was His gift out of His great Divine Mercy. And shortly after that, after He had expired on the cross, a centurion pierced His Heart with a lance "and immediately there came out blood and water" (John 19:34) as a font of Divine Mercy for the entire world. After Our Lord ascended into Heaven His Apostles and disciples perpetuated His Divine Mercy as Paul, Peter, James, Timothy, Jude and John document in their epistles of the New Testament. From that time on His Mercy has been documented in Church annals by saints and sinners throughout the centuries.

      But it wasn't until the 20th Century when Jesus made known the full scope of His Mercy, detailing everything to His chosen "Messenger of Mercy" - Saint Sister Marie Faustina Kowalska in the first part of this century. Since then, thanks to the tireless dedication of the Congregation of Marians the Devotion of Divine Mercy has spread everywhere. God, in His Divine Mercy, has a plan for all mankind to come, once again, beneath His sheltering outstretched arms. This plan has brought into being this new monastic cloistered, contemplative community of the Institute of Divine Mercy that He first called for more than fifty years ago when He, Jesus Christ, spoke to Saint Faustina in Poland. She wrote down His words in her special Diary and made every effort and attempt to fulfill all that Jesus asked of her, which included beginning a new contemplative, cloistered community of nuns dedicated solely to calling down Divine Mercy upon the world, beginning first with the place in which they were located, their immediate area, their country, and ultimately to all the world. Faustina knew, before her death, that it was not in her lifetime on earth that this would be accomplished, but that God would permit this new community to spring to life only when she was in Heaven, and working tirelessly still to spread devotion to His Divine Mercy.

      The Infinite rays of Divine Mercy have not ceased to flow from Heaven to earth. But so often the rays of Mercy are interrupted, so to speak, by the ill-will of mankind who don't want Mercy, don't know about Mercy, don't ask for it, don't seek it, and reject it once it is given. God does not wish for anything to be wasted that He, Who is Infinite, grants to His children. And so, in this day and age, as we near the turn of the second millennium, as we near the End Times that will usher in not the end of the world but the glorious Age of the Divine Will, the Reign of the Sacred Heart, the Era of the Eucharistic Presence, the Second Pentecost through the Triumph of Mary's Immaculate Heart, this monastic, cloistered community of contemplative nuns dedicated to Divine Mercy is one of the few hopes left in a world caught in Satan's snare. But we must all remember that when this glorious age comes, the rush of converts will come because of God's Infinite Mercy and those on earth who have beseeched that Mercy on the entire world such as these dedicated "vessels of prayer" of the Institute of Divine Mercy who are simple conduits of His Mercy because they believe fully in what Saint Paul affirmed in Acts 17:28, "For in Him we live and move and have our being."