Led Into the Truth His Mercy Endures Forever

Apr 24, 2009

I remember watching anxiously on television while Pope John Paul II was dying.  He had been the only Pope I ever knew; his face was the face of the Church for me.  I remember feeling such joy for him when he died, because it was the vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday, the feast he so loved. 

Of course, I never quite understood the idea of Divine Mercy Sunday.  We make it through the 40-day period of Lenten prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, cap it off with the Sacred Triduum, and then we enter into the celebratory Easter Season.  So important is Easter that it extends for eight days—eight days celebrating the resurrection and the victory over sin and death.  But then suddenly our liturgical cycle calls us once again to repentance, to confession, to meditating on Divine Mercy pouring forth from the pierced side of Christ on the Cross.  We were just celebrating the Resurrection, and suddenly we return to Calvary.  This is a little confusing to me.  Perhaps last Sunday you were confused too.

While I was in the Holy Land for Easter break, I had the opportunity to take a quick trip to the Sinai Peninsula.  Mount Sinai is identified in the Book of Exodus as the place where Moses received the Ten Commandments.  After we crossed the border into Egypt, our driver took us past stunning sienna cliffs rising abruptly from the Red Sea to the winding road that climbs into the craggy outcroppings of the alien Sinai wilderness.  This drive was both fantastic and disturbing.  The terrain is completely inhospitable.  It consists entirely of rocky mountains, sand, and sun.  As we drove, we passed through no less than three sandstorms; thankfully, none were serious.

After the first hour of driving, we reached the high plateau, and the beauty of the rugged mountains gave way to plains of sand and merciless turf, still wholly without vegetation.  It was in these large flat areas that I imagined the thousands of Israelites passing on their way to the Promised Land.  I began to understand why in Exodus they were always complaining.  Almost immediately after escaping the Egyptian Pharaoh through the miraculously parted Red Sea, the Israelites grumbled: “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by fleshpots and ate bread to the full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger” (Ex 16:3).  In response to their groaning, God provided manna from heaven.  The Israelites complained again, looking for drink, and Moses struck the rock at Horeb, water gushing forth.  Again and again, the Israelites complained about their situation, and again and again the Lord provided, his mercy overflowing upon them as they made it through the wilderness to the Promised Land.

In the savage terrain near the frighteningly severe Mount Sinai, I realized that without the continuing mercy of the Lord through the 40-year journey, the Israelites would not have survived.  They had just accomplished their greatest victory: the Passover event would forever be memorialized as the moment of their salvation, and the flight from Egypt through the Red Sea was the triumph of the good and faithful Chosen People over the oppressor-pagans of Egypt.  But despite the triumph of Passover, despite the triumph of crossing the sea, the Israelites had to continue to rely on the mercy of God to sustain their every need.

Suddenly the placement of Divine Mercy Sunday one week after Easter doesn’t seem so strange to me.  It is an unfortunate reality of our nature that oftentimes immediately after our greatest triumphs come our greatest falls.  The Israelites escaped death at the hand of Pharaoh by the miraculous and unprecedented intervention of the Lord, and then they almost immediately began to question his providence—whether they would be provided with food and water in the desert. 

I do the same.  You do too.  We are blessed abundantly, and then we fall.  There is actually something brilliant in the liturgical placement of Divine Mercy Sunday: the Church understands our nature.  She understands that though the victory has been won by Christ, in our daily struggle to accept his victory, we need the reminder and the reassurance that the mercy of the Lord endures forever.  It is a font that will never go dry.  Moses struck the rock at Horeb and water flowed forth, water to quench the thirst of thousands.  When Christ’s side was pierced, blood and water flowed forth, to quench the thirst of every man and woman who ever was, is, or will be.  Last Sunday was Divine Mercy Sunday, but every Mass is a gift from the font of God’s mercy. 

There is a magnificent Psalm of praise that recounts the Exodus story from the standpoint of God’s mercy:

to him who divided the Red Sea in sunder,
for his mercy endures forever,
and made Israel pass through the midst of it,
for his mercy endures forever,
but overthrew Pharaoh and his host into the Red Sea,
for his mercy endures forever,
to him who led his people through the wilderness,
for his mercy endures forever,
he who gives food to all flesh,
for his mercy endures forever. (Ps 136: 13-16, 25)

As Christians, we could add a few lines to this psalm:

Christ took on all our sins and died on the cross,
For his mercy endures forever,
He rose from the dead and ascended to heaven,
For his mercy endures forever,
There he waits to welcome us, ready to help us if we fall,
For his mercy endures forever.

If you missed the chance to taste again the mercy of God last Sunday, he is waiting.  He is waiting for me, and he is waiting for you, for his mercy endures forever.  God bless you, and Happy Easter!