Holy Family, Silver Lake center for devotional celebration of Divine Mercy Sunday on April 18

The Sunday after Easter has been designated by Pope John Paul II as Divine Mercy Sunday throughout the Universal Church. In many dioceses, a particular parish is designated by the local bishop as the place where this feast will be celebrated in a special way. Bishop John C. Nienstedt has designated the Church of the Holy Family

in Silver Lake as the center for this devotional celebration. All faithful of the Diocese of New Ulm are invited to Holy Family parish on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 18, 2004 for an hour of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and confession from 2-3 p.m. with a special Mass and praying of the chaplet of Divine Mercy at 3 p.m. The faithful are also invited to the regular weekend Masses on Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 8 a.m. and 10 a.m., all of which will be Divine Mercy Masses, with the special celebration beginning with the hour of adoration from 2-3 p.m. followed by a special Mass and Divine Mercy devotions at 3 p.m.

The devotion of Divine Mercy comes from an apparition of Jesus to St. Faustina Kowalska between 1930 and 1938. In 1938 she died at the age of 33, the same age as Jesus when He died, from the pains of tuberculosis and penance done for sinners. Jesus had appeared to her in Poland before World War II and asked her to make His mercy known to the world. Pope John Paul II canonized St. Faustina Kowalska as the first saint of the new millennium in the Holy Year of 2000. She was to be the saint of Mercy to set the theme of Mercy for the third millennium. He proclaimed Divine Mercy Sunday as an official church feast to be celebrated annually.

The Holy Father explains the importance of this devotion in the following words:

"I wish solemnly to entrust the world to Divine Mercy! I do so with the burning desire that the message of God's merciful love, proclaimed here through St. Faustina, may be made known to all the peoples of the earth and fill their hearts with hope. How greatly today's world needs God's mercy! In every continent, from the depth of human suffering, a cry of mercy seems to rise up. Wherever respect for life and human dignity are lacking, there is a need of God's merciful love, in whose light we see the inexpressible value of every human being. Mercy is needed in order to ensure that every injustice in the world will come to an end in the splendor of truth."