This Sunday, the second of the Easter Season, is marked as Divine Mercy Sunday.
In church terms it represents a fairly new addition to the calendar, having only been proclaimed by Pope John Paul II in the year 2000.
The fuel for its elevation came for the late Polish Pope’s devotion to St Faustina Kowalska.
He laid some of the foundational work for this in 1980, with a papal encyclical focused on God’s Mercy entitled “Rich in Mercy”.
As the Norbertine scholar Fr Alfred McBride, O.Praem. noted, “by linking the revealed truth about God’s mercy to one of the most solemn Sundays after Easter itself, he illumined the fact that the liturgy already proclaimed the divine mercy. The truth has been embedded for two millennia in the worship of the Church.”
In the Brisbane Archdiocese all parishes will observe Divine Mercy Sunday but not all will feature Devotions in addition to their regular weekend schedule.
Still, a great cross section of parishes from north to south and East to West will provide opportunities for those who wish to partake and in Devotions and / or Mass.
Among these are:
- Annerley Ekibin
- Banyo Nundah
- Burpengary
- Caloundra
- Carina
- Childers
- Jubilee (St Finbarr’s at Ashgrove)
- Mitchelton
- Pine Rivers (Bray Park)
- Stafford
- Surfers Paradise
- Upper Mt Gravatt
- Wynnum (Nazareth House)