Casual Thoughts on Divine Mercy

Pictured: Doe-eyed mystic.

Recent times have seen a bit of backlash against the JP2-Approved "Divine Mercy" devotion and feast. Last year, Hilary White wrote an extensive hit piece on the What's Up with Francischurch? blog, and a few days ago the equally irascible Maureen Mullarkey expressed her disgust with the phenomenon. My interest in anything related to plenary indulgences has waned considerably as the Holy Father's monthly prayer intentions have become increasingly absurd, and while I have a grudging respect for the "Sacred Heart" movement, I find the prospect of reading Sr. Maria Faustina Kowalska's diary to be even less attractive than the prospect of reading Stephenie Meyer's memoirs.

But aesthetic problems aside, the implications of the Divine Mercy Sunday devotion are somewhat troubling. If taken literally, the devotional practice is said to grant graces much greater than that of a plenary indulgence, graces greater than all the Sacraments except for Baptism, at the rank of a second Baptism. Gone is the usual indulgence requirement of complete detachment from sin; now we're in the dispensation of the New Pentecost, I suppose.

Still, what do I know? I cannot say I understand how P. John Paul's 1993 canonization of Sr. Kowalska and the creation of her Divine Mercy feast in 2000 deals with the apparently severe problems of her character and theology, so much as it sweeps them under the rug. The endless chattering of JP2 2.0 about "mercy" is the logical endgame of mercy without penance.

One of the tragedies of the spiritual life used to be the soiling of one's baptismal garments. Rare was even the saint who never soiled that primordial purity with mortal sin. The stains of sin were difficult to wash out, and the loving desire for self-purification was a great drive for those wishing to please God and his Mother. Now this has been replaced with a yearly return to baptismal purity with little effort on the sinner's part, like Hera at Kanathos. But maybe this is what we require in these dark times? Maybe the Catholic faithful are so far lost in ignorance and apathy that God is reaching down into the depths to pull us up into his good graces. Maybe we have been trained so long to hate penance and perfection that Christ is outpouring his mercy in such a way that he is willing even for that to be abused by preachers, so long as it is received.

There is also a liturgical tragedy, for the old celebration of the Octave Day of Easter in its various forms (Low Sunday, White Sunday, Quasimodo Sunday, Pascha Clausum, etc.) has been lost. Like so many other octaves on the Roman kalendar, the Octave of Easter has been manipulated, though at least not eliminated. I cannot help but think that Karol Wojtyła was inspired by national loyalty rather than careful reasoning when he promoted Faustina's cultus and devotions to universal status.

Still, what do I know? On Low Sunday this year I thankfully heard a sermon that spoke of Jesus and Easter, with only a passing mention of the Divine Mercy stuff. Maybe one day I will dip into Sr. Kowalska's diary and present commentary on a few choice passages, but until then I have more interesting books to read.

Jesus' secretary "in this life and the next," pray for us!

Maria Goretti the Merciful

Two days ago I made a quasi-pilgrimage to visit the major relics of Maria Goretti in Dallas. (I can't honestly call a 20-minute drive a real pilgrimage.) Strangely enough, the relics were not displayed at St. Maria Goretti parish, but at the even more architecturally modernist St. Monica.

I have visited relics before, but never any that drew such a large crowd. The line when I arrived lasted about an hour. At other times of the day pilgrims were reporting 3-4 hour waits. A shuttle was bringing people over from a local Protestant church that had offered its parking lot for use. One lady helpfully told those standing in line that they could easily skip ahead and sneak in through another door.

On the approach to the church, I was accosted by some well-meaning devotees selling books and laminated prayer cards. The narthex (lobby?) featured an audio loop of a priest telling the story of St. Maria's extraordinary forgiveness. Inside the church, Knights of Columbus divided us into two efficient lines. Accosted again by devotees insisting that I take a last-minute prayer card, I offended them greatly by turning them down, all while also trying to ignore the very loud video presentation playing on the projection screens. Two Ladies of the Holy Sepulchre—their Knight husbands apparently taking a smoke break—stood elevated in the sanctuary overlooking the steady stream of pilgrims.

Maria herself was a small girl when she died. She was murdered during an attempted rape at the age of eleven by a twenty year-old man. Her hair is slightly lighter than it appears in most paintings and statues of her. Everything except her hair is covered while resting in the reliquary.

While praying in the pews after venerating the relics, I reflected on the content of the presentations which still bombarded everyone inside the church. Specifically, there was much ado about Maria's pious forgiveness of her rapist while she was dying, and no talk whatsoever about her refusal to submit to his impurity. What a change from the little girl's canonization ceremony, which concluded with P. Pius XII asking the crowds of youths, "Young people, pleasure of the eyes of Jesus, are you determined to resist any attack on your chastity with the help of grace of God?"

Resistance to evil is no longer in vogue; forgiveness—whatever that now means—certainly is. And if the recipient of that forgiveness is a pedophile rapist? What better way to herald in the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy?