On
the morning of January 14, 2009, Fred Berretta decided to clean out his
briefcase, something he hadn't done in a long time. As he emptied it out, he
came across the Chaplet of The Divine Mercy, a booklet he had stuffed there
years ago. He recalls having prayed it a few times only. But by this time, he
had completely forgotten it there among spreadsheets and reports and matters
that seemed far more urgent than praying.
Only
two weeks before, Fred had made a New Year's resolution to try to get better
spiritually. Here in this hotel room was an opportunity to fulfill it. So he
started to pray the chaplet, a prayer our Lord gave to St. Faustina Kowalska in
the 1930s during a series of revelations that sparked the Divine Mercy
movement. The time happened to be 3 o'clock, known as the Hour of Great Mercy,
when Jesus died on the cross.
Little
did he know that this would be his preparation for his impending meeting with death.
The following day Fred together with 155 people boarded a jet airliner at
LaGuardia Airport bound for Charlotte, N.C., his home town. Ninety seconds
after takeoff, the jet apparently hit a flock of geese, the engines exploded,
and the plane started to lose power at 3,200 feet. The aircraft was now out of
reach from any airfield. It lost thrust and altitude. Everything became eerily
quiet. Fred fastened his seatbelt. His left hand clutched the armrest, his
heartbeat raced, his face was flushed. "Prepare for impact," the
pilot said over the PA system.
He
thought about his family — his wife and four young children. He thought about
God, about death, about trust, about an extraordinary promise made by Jesus
that he read the previous day in that booklet.
What
was the promise? Suddenly, it would come to him, the last passage he read
before heading off to his meeting. Jesus said to St. Faustina, "This is
the hour of great mercy. In this hour, I will refuse nothing to the soul that
makes a request of Me in virtue of My Passion (Diary, 1320).
As
the ground surged into view, Fred looked at his watch. It was 3:30, the Hour of
Great Mercy! Fred prayed with every fiber of emotion and sincerity he could
muster, 'God, please be merciful to us.'"
And
the rest of is now history. This was the crash landing of Flight 1549 in the
Hudson River on Jan. 15, 2009. No one was seriously injured. The news quickly
dubbed it the "Miracle on the Hudson." There in the news that day
were images of a US Airways Airbus floating gently down the frigid Hudson. The
passengers stood on its wings, calmly awaiting rescue. In the history of
aviation no jet liner had ever made an emergency landing on water without
casualties.
In
February 1931 Sister Faustina saw Jesus dressed in a white garment. He held one
hand raised in blessing and the other hand touching his garment at the breast
as in this picture. From that point in his garment two rays of light emanated,
one red and the other pale. Jesus requested that we venerate this image - the
Divine Mercy underneath are the words: “Jesus, I trust in You.”
Take a look at the Gospel reading today. When Jesus appears to his apostles, he
says to them, “Peace be with you.” They were not at peace. They knew Jesus
Christ, they believed in Him , but they were not at peace. They were
afraid.
So why
are we also afraid? The only reason we would be afraid, that we
would not be at peace is because we don't trust Him. We don't fully believe. In
our heads, we know; but in our hearts, we don't accept. We keep Jesus at an
arm's distance so that our lives don't have to change. We don't want to let him
in deep because we know that it will do something to us; something incredible,
but we don't know what. So we don't let him get any closer. We are afraid to be
vulnerable before God.
And yet the second reading today puts it: “Place your trust in me. I have conquered the world. It
is I who come in water and blood. Be at peace. It is the Spirit who will
testify” In the gospel, we are shown how the Holy Spirit is breathed upon the
disciples and how they are given the authority to forgiver sins, our sins. When
we really know that our sins are forgiven, we can be at peace. Many do not
believe they cannot be forgiven. They don't believe that God really loves
them because they do not believe that they can be loved.
So
what does our Risen Lord of Divine Mercy do? He comes to us and He points to his heart. The rays of
love flow from his heart depicting, in two different colors, the waters of
baptism and the blood of Christ. These symbols represent The Eucharist and
Baptism; the covenant and the celebration of the covenant that we entered into.
It is the reality of the real presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, and
the reality of having your soul and mine cleansed of sin through Confession.
When
we kneel before the priest in confession and hear those beautiful words of
absolution, we walk out with the knowledge, the unshakable knowledge, that our sins have been washed away. They are no longer there. Jesus wants,
more than anything, to forgive our sins.
The
message Sr. Faustina Kowalska brought is the answer that God offers to the
questions and expectations of human beings in our time, marked by terrible
tragedies. Jesus said to Sr. Faustina: "Mankind will not have peace until
it turns with trust to My mercy" (Diary, 300).
Divine Mercy! This is the
Easter gift that the Church receives from the risen Christ and offers to
humanity today.
References:
Carroll, F. (2009). A book helped a
passenger to pray: “God be merciful to us.” http://thedivinemercy.org/news/story.php?NID=3493
John Paul II. (2001). Pope´s Homily on
Divine Mercy Sunday
"This Miracle Has Changed
Humanity´s Destiny"
Kearns, P. (2010). “Divine Mercy.” Deacon
Pat’s Homilies.
Lane, T. (2013). Homily for the Second
Sunday of Easter - Divine Mercy Sunday.