We learned many lessons about covenants during the 40 days of Lent this year.  And now we exult in the most important covenant – that God so loved the world that He sent His only son so that we who follow him might have eternal life.  God loves us.  God is merciful toward us.  And God wants us to live forever with Him in His Kingdom.  This is the essential meaning of our Easter celebrations. 

Throughout the Easter Season, we continue our works of charity and mercy.  Pope Francis called mercy the “beating heart of the gospel.”  Mercy and compassionate treatment of the distressed and undeserved is another term for God’s charity.  Consider showing devotion to it by reciting the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, a rosary-based prayer that was received by Saint Faustina, a Polish nun in the 1930s, through visions of Jesus.  Divine Mercy Sunday is celebrated the week after Easter, but many make the Chaplet part of their regular prayer and devotion by reciting it every day at 3 p.m. (the traditional hour of Christ’s death).

Wishing you all the blessings, charity, and mercy of the Holy Season of Easter,

Fr. John Mahoney