Tis The Season.......For Divine Mercy

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year!” With the recent celebration of Christmas and New Years, I am sure you have heard these epic lyrics written by Andy Williams at some point this past holiday season. Even before we celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas songs are already being played at Wal-Mart, Dicks Sporting Goods, Macy’s or any other shopping outlet across America. They draw our mind and spirit closer to the beautiful festivities that have already taken place, giving us a sense of childlike innocence, happiness and joy which this season always brings.

Like many people, Christmas is my favorite time of the year. I love walking around my neighborhood, breathing in the cold winter air, looking at the various decorations and Christmas lights that adorn houses. The joy and anticipation you find on the faces of kids and adults alike is contagious. Amid the hustle and bustle, everyone’s joy, excitement and even innocence is contagious.

Yet, this Christmas, a conversation I had with a friend of mine gave me reason to reflect on why we really celebrate this wonderful Holiday. He came to visit a while back and while having a few beers on the last night of his stay with us our conversation turned to the past. He still carries the wounds and baggage from his younger years and due these issues, he is away from the Church at the moment. I can relate. Like him, I know what it is like to self-medicate in order to hide from the pain of loneliness, isolation and fear.

During the course of our conversation he spoke numerous times about God’s judgment and mercy. “I don’t understand why a God who calls himself good would allow someone to go to hell? I don’t believe he wants to damn people who make mistakes but are trying to live good lives.” He would mention.

Oh, how relevant this conversation is to the Christmas Season!  

Christmas is a time for families to reunite, set differences aside and come together in a spirit of friendship, trust and love. The magic of Christmas does indeed bring with it a spirit of peace on earth and good will toward men. This magic of the season extends beyond just the human family.

This time of reunion with loved ones is a reminder, better yet, an invitation to once again reunite ourselves with Almighty God, who out of sheer gratuitous love, gave us the greatest gift in human history, his Son. By using this “wonderful time of the year” as a moment to come home to him, he gives us the gift of the spirit of this Holiday Season so we can experience the gift of His Son, and the Divine Mercy he brought to the earth over 2,000 years ago, a Divine Mercy readily available to us as 2017 has become 2018.

The Christmas and New Years Season is the most wonderful time of the year not only because we celebrate family, friends, giving and receiving gifts. We celebrate the reason for our salvation, we put a face to hope, a person to mercy promised to us from the prophets of old and freedom from slavery to evil through the birth of Our Lord.

Christ came into this world during a time when the Jews were not only under the whip of the Roman Legions but also Herod and many Pharisees who were meant to protect them. Sexual promiscuity was rampant as was slavery. The Jews felt like an occupied people in their own land. Crucifixions and torture was common.

In the midst of this chaos, Christ, born of a Virgin, came to bring us the merciful face of the Father. He came not to condemn but to save, (John 3:17) to promise us a new beginning, a new life, a fresh start and to fulfill the deepest desires of our hearts. God’s name is mercy. As a seminarian once said, “His justice is mercy.” He does not want to lose a single soul. Father C. John McCloskey, the same priest who brought the Abortion King, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, into the Catholic Church, once said during a homily, “God gives every soul ample opportunity, that is grace, throughout life to turn to Him, to love Him and be loved by Him in return.”   

Yes he gave is free will and many times we use it to turn away from him. As St. Augustine said, “The just man sins seven times a day.” But he is the first to greet us when we long for healing, hope and wholeness.

Like the father waits for his prodigal son, Christ waits for us as a child in a manger no less, flanked not by a retinue or guards, but the kind and tender face of his Mother Mary and her spouse, his foster father St. Joseph.[i]  He did not come as an avenging soldier, looking to conquer nations with the sword. He came to conquer the world and our hearts with a love which sets all men and women free. He came as child, to restore in us that childlike innocence and trust our first parents, Adam and Eve, once possessed. He shows us the innocent face of the Heavenly Father, who so loved and desired our salvation he gave us the ultimate gift of his own son. (John 3:16)

St. Faustina, the author of Divine Mercy, who received messages of Christ’s Divine Mercy shares what Christ revealed to her: “The flames of mercy are burning Me – clamoring to be spent; I want to keep pouring them out upon souls.”[ii] When we refuse his mercy, as a third degree burn scorches human flesh, the rays of his love burn him and pierce his heart as the Roman Soldier's spear did at Calvary. His mercy is not meant to be kept to himself. Like fires engulf parched woodlands, his love and mercy is meant to engulf each and everyone of us, so instead of questioning his mercy, we learn to trust in him and place our weaknesses, our failings, our humiliations and above all, our faith in his sacred heart which burns with the intensity of love which can never be cooled.

Approach Him and allow his rays to engulf your heart in this New Year. Allow 2018 to be the year of the New Creation, the new you, where the old fades away as the previous year has and the new has come! ( 2 Cor 5:17)  As Saint Theresa of Calcutta says, “Approach him as you are. He will do the rest!"  A blessed 2018 to you and yours!

[i] Escriva, Josemaria. The Way. London, England. 1954  

[ii] Kowalska, St. M. Faustina. Diary: Divine Mercy in My Soul. Stockbridge, Massachusetts. 1999. P 99.