Courageous Priest

“Let No Soul Fear To Draw Near To Me, Even Though Its Sins Be As Scarlet!”

By Fr. George W. Kosicki, CSB, with David Came

Q. What is Divine Mercy Sunday?

A. Divine Mercy Sunday is the title of the Second Sunday of the Easter season. It was named by Pope John Paul II at the canonization of St. Maria Faustina on April 30, 2000, and then officially decreed by the Vatican.

Pope John Paul II said of Divine Mercy Sunday, “In a special way, it is the Sunday of thanksgiving for all the goodness that God has shown us in the whole Easter mystery” (April 23, 1995).

Here, he underscored the Church’s understanding that Divine Mercy Sunday as the Octave Day of Easter brings us the fullness of Christ’s Resurrection — pointing back to the first day of our celebration on Easter Sunday and now to its fullness on the eighth day, the Octave.

Divine Mercy Sunday, then, can be seen as the convergence of all the mysteries and graces of both Holy Week and Easter Week. It is like a multiple-exposure photograph of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, and Easter Week. On Mercy Sunday, the Octave Day of Easter, we celebrate the great graces that are available to us through our risen Lord’s victory over sin, death, and the Evil One.

In fact, our Lord revealed to St. Faustina, the great Apostle of Divine Mercy, that He desires on this day to pour out a flood of mercy on souls:

My daughter, tell the whole world about My inconceivable mercy. I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and shelter for all souls, and especially for poor sinners. On that day the very depths of My tender mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the Fount of My Mercy (Diary of St. Faustina, 699).

Q. What graces can I receive on the day?

A. Our Lord revealed to St. Faustina His desire to flood us with His graces on that day. Reflect on each of the promises and desires that He expressed about Divine Mercy Sunday, which are recorded in entry 699 of the Diary of St. Faustina — the main passage about the Feast of Mercy:

• On that day the very depths of My tender mercy are open.
• I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon souls who approach the Fount of My Mercy [the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Holy Eucharist].
• The soul that will go to Confession [beforehand] and receive Holy Communion [on that day] shall obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment.
• On that day all the divine floodgates through which graces flow are opened.
• Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its sins be as scarlet.
• My mercy is so great that no mind, be it of man or of angel, will be able to fathom it throughout eternity.
• Every soul in its relation to Me will contemplate My love and mercy throughout eternity.
• The Feast of Mercy emerged from My very depths of tenderness.
• It is My desire that it be solemnly celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter.
• Mankind will not have peace until it turns to the Fount of My Mercy.

These promises and desires point to an amazing flood of graces that are available to us on Divine Mercy Sunday — including complete forgiveness of sins and punishment! The slate can be wiped clean, and we can be granted a completely fresh start in life.

Q. What about the indulgences for Divine Mercy Sunday? How can I receive an indulgence for myself or for a soul in purgatory?

A. First, we need to make one thing clear: The extraordinary graces mentioned in the last answer, which are based on private revelations contained in St. Faustina’s Diary, are not replaced by the indulgences that the Church has granted for the feast day. Rather, the plenary and partial indulgences provide the faithful with another opportunity to receive graces on Divine Mercy Sunday — either for oneself or a soul in purgatory. And this opportunity for graces is officially sanctioned by the Church.

To understand these graces, we must understand what an indulgence is. When we sin, we not only offend God, but we also introduce disorder into our life and the lives of other people. It’s true that in the Sacrament of Reconciliation we receive forgiveness from God through the ministry of the Church when we repent, confess our sins, and do penance with a firm intention to amend our lives. Even so, because of our sins, some disorder usually remains. There are also temporal consequences or punishments attached to that disorder. (“Temporal” simply means relating to our earthly existence.)

However, the good news is that Christ has given us His Church. As His Mystical Body, she has been granted the power to bind and loose in His name and to distribute graces from His superabundant treasury of merits — all flowing from His redemptive death. These treasures of redemption are available to all the faithful and can be used to remit or take away the temporal punishment due to sin for ourselves or the deceased. Further, they can be partial or plenary (complete).

In the case of Divine Mercy Sunday, Pope John Paul II in 2002 granted plenary and partial indulgences “motivated by an ardent desire to foster in Christians this devotion to Divine Mercy … in the hope of offering great spiritual fruit to the faithful,” according to the official decree.

To receive the plenary indulgence, the decree explained that the faithful must go to confession, receive the Eucharist, and offer prayers for the intentions of the Pope. One must also “with a soul totally detached from affection to any sin, even venial, participate in the pious practices undertaken in honor of Divine Mercy, or at least to recite in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament … the Our Father, the Creed, and a pious invocation to the Merciful Lord Jesus.”

A partial indulgence is granted to the faithful, who, at least with a contrite heart, pray to Jesus a legitimately approved invocation or prayer.

Q. Why should I go to confession beforehand?

A. You should go beforehand so that you can receive the best possible Holy Communion on Divine Mercy Sunday. Sin is the obstacle to our fervent reception of Holy Communion, and our sins can be wiped away by the Sacrament of Reconciliation or Penance. This is the Sacrament of Mercy that our Lord in St. Faustina’s Diary calls “the Tribunal of Mercy” (1448) and the “fountain of My mercy” (1602). We should receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation prior to Divine Mercy Sunday for a couple of reasons. First, the purpose of Lent is to prepare us for Easter and Divine Mercy Sunday, so we shouldn’t wait until the last moment. Second, going earlier shows pastoral sensitivity to the fact that there is usually a shortage of priests to hear everyone’s confession on the day itself.

Q. What about receiving Holy Communion on the day itself?

A. In receiving Holy Communion, we receive Jesus who is Mercy Incarnate. Receiving Him on Divine Mercy Sunday is extra special because He has promised to give us so many graces. Besides making a good confession, we should prepare through prayer, recollection, and expectation of the Lord’s desire to show us His mercy.

Jesus told St. Faustina how much He desires to come to human hearts in the Holy Eucharist, but far too many of them are not well disposed to receive Him: “Know, My daughter, that when I come to a human heart in Holy Communion, My hands are full of all kinds of graces which I want to give to the soul. But souls do not even pay attention to Me” (Diary, 1385).

On Divine Mercy Sunday, we should strive to make the best Holy Communion of our lives — with the eyes of our soul fixed on Jesus.

Q. Why should the priest or deacon give his homily on Divine Mercy on that day?

A. The priest or deacon is called to give his homily on the Scripture readings of the day, and the readings of all three cycles for that Sunday (A, B, and C) are on mercy. Pope John Paul II emphasized this very point in his homily at St. Faustina’s canonization when he established Divine Mercy Sunday for the whole Church.

The Responsorial Psalm 118 is a hymn to God’s mercy. In John 20:19- 31, the Gospel of the day for all three cycles, Jesus institutes the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Also, in the same Gospel reading, St. Thomas professes “my Lord and my God!” This is Thomas’s great act of trust in Divine Mercy Incarnate after the Merciful Savior shows him the wounds of mercy in His hands and in His side.

Q. On Divine Mercy Sunday, should I venerate the image of Jesus, The Divine Mercy?

A. Yes, the image of Jesus, The Divine Mercy, is to be venerated on Divine Mercy Sunday. It is to be given a place of honor in our churches and homes on this Sunday. Our Lord appeared to St. Faustina and then directed her to have this appearance of Himself as the Merciful Savior painted and then venerated publicly. He told her, “I want the image to be solemnly blessed on the first Sunday after Easter, and I want it to be venerated publicly so that every soul may know about it” (Diary, 341).

In the image, our risen Savior has pale and red rays streaming from His side. These rays symbolize the Blood and Water that flowed from His side while He was on the cross. But, in His appearance to St. Faustina, they have been transformed into glorious rays, revealing a fount of healing graces for sinners who will turn to Him with trust. That is why the image always bears the inscription “Jesus, I trust in You!” In our churches and homes, we can venerate The Divine Mercy image by gazing upon the Merciful Savior in prayer and adoration. We can place candles and flowers before the image as signs of our love for Jesus.

Q. What are some of the other aspects of preparing for and celebrating the day?

A. There are a great many options.

In preparation: We begin to prepare in Lent for our celebration of Easter and Divine Mercy Sunday (its Octave Day). We especially focus on performing works of mercy, spending more time in prayer, as well as by doing penances and giving alms. Praying The Divine Mercy Chaplet and the Novena to The Divine Mercy can be particularly helpful in our preparations.

Many souls also benefit from doing more spiritual reading during Lent. Consider, for example, studying The Divine Mercy message and devotion through books, DVDs, and CDs.

The celebration itself: Divine Mercy Sunday, for many parishes, involves large numbers of people gathering to celebrate Holy Masses at which God’s mercy is proclaimed by the priests or deacons. Holy Hours before the Blessed Sacrament can also be held at points throughout the weekend — perhaps starting before the Vigil Mass on Saturday. Additional priests may be present to hear the confessions of those parishioners who did not go before Mercy Sunday.

There are many ways to enhance your liturgical celebrations. When appropriate, The Divine Mercy Chaplet can be recited or even sung. Hymns of mercy and readings from Sacred Scripture, as well as readings from the Diary of St. Faustina, can be offered. A parish might show various DVDs or films. Organizers might provide a book table with a selection of Divine Mercy books, booklets, and pamphlets.

As we receive God’s mercy, we are called to share it with others. So all participants should be encouraged to venerate an image of The Divine Mercy and to perform a work of mercy on the day itself out of love for Jesus. A solemn service to mark the Hour of Great Mercy could be at three in the afternoon. At this time, we recall the hour when the Merciful Savior died on the cross for our sins. This is a particularly appropriate time for praying The Divine Mercy Chaplet, exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, and Benediction.

At the end of your Divine Mercy Sunday celebration, the pastor or deacon could encourage participants to avail themselves of the extraordinary graces that they’ve just received. He could encourage them to realize that Divine Mercy is a whole way of life — not just for Mercy Sunday. That means trusting in Jesus and being merciful every day of our lives.

It is not a coincidence that the first of the ten Bill of Rights was religious liberty.

by the Most Reverend Thomas Rodi, What a difference a year makes. At last year’s Chrism Mass, we were discussing the change from responding “And also with you” to “And with your spirit.” Such a discussion appears somewhat paltry when compared to the challenge to religious liberty now facing our Church and our country.

Bishop Thomas John Rodi

Religious liberty has been consistently respected in our country’s history. From the beginning of our nation, we have been a people of various faiths, religions, and beliefs. Mindful of this, we Americans have said to one another that I will not force you to act against what you believe and you will not force me to act against what I believe.

When the Constitution was written, ten amendments were quickly added to the document. These first ten amendments are the Bill of Rights. The Constitution established our government and the manner in which it was to operate. The Bill of Rights established the fundamental rights which this new government must respect. It is not a coincidence that the first of the ten rights enshrined in the Constitution was religious liberty. The writers of the Bill of Rights knew that any government which would seek to coerce its citizens to violate their religious consciences would not long maintain its other liberties. They knew this because of the experience in the European countries from which Americans had come. In several European countries a person could be arrested and even put to death for their religious beliefs. It is important to remember that many of the first European colonists left their homelands seeking religious liberty. The writers of the Bill of Rights knew that history well and wanted the United States to be a place where no one’s religious liberty would be violated.

This has been a core value in our nation’s history. For example, even at the most traumatic moments of our history when we have been at total war and have drafted every young man to fight, if a young man’s religion did not allow military service because of religious beliefs, that young man would be exempt from the military service that was required of every other young man. It is a testimony to our American respect for religious liberty that, when everyone’s son, brother, or father had to fight, we still exempted those who would not fight because of their religious beliefs.

But today is a troubling moment in our nation’s history. The recent mandate by the Department of Health and Human Services is a direct challenge to religious liberty. The mandate forces almost every employer to provide contraception, sterilization, and abortifacient drugs for employees. There is no exception provided in this new regulation for employers who are morally opposed to these drugs and medical procedures whether they be individuals or Church ministries. There is only the narrow exception for a church ministry which is primarily for the preaching of the faith and which primarily hires and serves only the members of its church.

 The administration’s new mandate seeks to separate the members of churches from their church ministries. Listen attentively when someone is speaking about this issue. Be very careful when a person says that we have “freedom of worship” in our country. These are often “code words” used to assault religious liberty. The Constitution grants far more than the freedom to worship in churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples. The Constitution grants a far broader right, namely, the right to religious liberty. The difference is this: Americans not only have the right to gather to worship, we have the right to leave our places of worship and to publically live our faith.

That is what makes this new regulation so insidious. It tells us as believers that our ministries of schools, colleges, hospitals, nursing homes, fraternal organizations, media ministries, social service centers and other charities are separate from the Churches and their members.

We as followers of Jesus Christ believe that we must serve others. It is the Lord Himself who told us that the love of God and the love of neighbor are inseparable and integral to being His followers. We are compelled by the Love of Christ, not only to worship God, but then to live our faith by offering our Church ministries. The ministries of the Church cannot be separated from worship but flow from our desire, founded upon our faith, to fulfill the two great commandments of Christ. This is the crux of this issue.

The President’s Administration seeks to coerce me to speak against what I believe. This mandate forces me to say to our Church employees that I am offering drugs and medical procedures which we believe to be morally objectionable, but that I still will offer them to you. And then this mandate forces me to act against my faith by paying for these very things which are morally objectionable. The only way in which this can be avoided would be to ignore our Christian duty to reach out to all of God’s children and close our Church ministries, our hospitals, college, schools, charities, etc, to anyone who is not Catholic, or to keep our ministries open and pay for drugs which are immoral and abort human life.

We did not ask for this controversy and this controversy was not necessary. The Administration has forced it upon us. But this is the situation which now confronts us. The history of our Church is replete with times when the clergy, religious, and laity had to confront threats to their faith. In speaking to all of us, and especially to you, my brother priests who recommit ourselves today to priestly ministry, I am certain that we will be, with God’s help, as courageous as believers in other generations.

For the sake of our nation, for the sake of our Church, and for the sake of our immortal souls, we cannot fail to demand the religious liberty which is rightfully ours. The Declaration of Independence proclaimed that we are endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights. The right to religious liberty was not given to us by any government and no government has the right to deprive us of it.

May God be our wisdom and our strength.

“Since Our Salvation Depends On Our Relationship With God, Extreme Care Should Be Taken With The Words And Actions Of the Sacred Liturgy!”

By: Father Jeffery A. Fasching

Taken from: The Catholic Knight

A Catholic Priest is first and foremost a man of prayer. Prayer alone with our Lord is the single most important activity that I engage in each and every day. If any priest tells you otherwise, he does not have his priorities in order. A significant number of seminarians and priests attribute their vocations to Eucharistic adoration. I am one of them. Being alone with the Lord with no distractions each day makes for a very personal visit through which I am able to listen to the Lord speak to me.

The Eucharist is a priceless treasure. I first began to learn this in my home parish of Saint Francis of Assisi in Wichita, KS when I was in my early twenties. As I began to discern my vocation, I felt a powerful attraction toward regularly visiting our Lord in the perpetual adoration chapel in the parish. Our Lord spoke to me in my heart with an overwhelming invitation to confect the Eucharist and bring Christ to the world. From that time on I realized that among the many possibilities that life offered me at that point, nothing could begin to compare with working for the salvation of souls as a Catholic priest.

Over the years I have truly experienced first hand how the words of Pope Benedict XVI ring true regarding the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and adoration: “Only within the breathing space of adoration can the Eucharistic celebration indeed be alive…Communion and adoration do not stand side by side, or even in opposition, but are indivisibly one.”

Less than a year ago I learned of our Holy Father’s milestone document “Summorum Pontificum,” which restored to priests the freedom to celebrate the “extraordinary form” of the Roman rite. With the help of an on-line tutorial, I trained myself to offer Mass in the extraordinary form. The reason for my attraction toward the Latin Mass is twofold: my traditional upbringing and my experience of an unwillingness on the part of many priests to follow the rubrics of the mass.

Since I have been offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the extraordinary form I have experienced both a strengthening of my faith and great consolation as a Traditional priest who has experienced tremendous support from a Traditional, like-minded bishop. I have experienced a deeper union with the Church and our Holy Father through the classical Roman Liturgy because so many saints throughout the ages have offered the Holy Sacrifice precisely the same way that I am able to do right now.

As children of God our relationship with God is by far the most important relationship we can have. This relationship is intimately united with the presence of our Lord in the Eucharist. It is through the Mass alone that we are able to receive our Lord in Holy Communion and thereby nourish our personal relationship with Him. My experience has been that in any human relationship the words we use and the actions we perform play a significant role in the success of that particular relationship. Since our salvation depends upon our relationship with God, we should take extreme care with the words and actions of the Sacred Liturgy.

The documents of Vatican II clearly state that no individual, not even a priest, has the right to change the rubrics of the Sacred Liturgy. Nevertheless, this practice is common-place in many parishes. When a priest changes the words and gestures of the Sacred Liturgy he endangers the faith of those for whom he celebrates and thereby becomes responsible for diminishing the integrity of their belief. In learning to offer the Traditional Latin Mass that has grown under the influence of the Holy Ghost for so many centuries, I have experienced tremendous peace in the midst of casual behavior and gratuitous changes of words and gestures so prevalent in many parishes around me.

The Catholic Faith and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass are the greatest gifts God has bestowed upon us. Therefore we must nourish our faith, grow in it, and never take what God has given us for granted. The Sacred Liturgy has been given to us by God to remain in contact with Him. As a priest, it is therefore incumbent upon me to help others to see how important the Liturgy is for our daily lives. The vestments, chalice, and all other items used during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass should show that we want to give back to God the most beautiful things that we have when we are in communion with Him.

The principle aim of the Church is to bring people into communion with the Lord through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The Mass is the source and summit of our lives as Catholic Christians. Consequently, Liturgical matters have always been of the utmost importance with respect to Holy Mother Church. Despite this, many pastors do not even care to take charge of how liturgies are performed in their own parishes! As a result, I have experienced a tremendous lack of knowledge among the lay faithful with respect to Catholic doctrine.

This is precisely where I believe my mission as a priest sympathetic to the extraordinary form of the Mass begins. Recently appointed pastor of a growing Latin Mass community, I am thrilled to have the opportunity to share my God-given faith with others who have it their aim to draw nourishment from the Sacred Liturgy that has nourished countless others throughout the centuries in the life of Holy Mother the Church.

This Is Not About One Issue We Just Need to Let Go

They call this “Spoken Word.”  Father Claude Burns’ previous video “Why I Love The Church and Religion”  received a half million views. Father addressed a young adult whose video went viral with 19 million views. It was an attack on the Church and Father Burns did an outstanding and professional job refuting it. Keep up the good work with the New Evangelism Father!
Feel free to share on Facebook or email.

Fr. Claude (Dusty) Burns
“I was born in Evansville, IN. I attended Memorial high school for 3 years and North high school for 1 year. I attended the University of Southern Indiana and graduated with a degree in psychology in May of 1997. I entered Mundelein Seminary in August of 1997 and was ordained in May of 2002.”