The Second Sunday of Easter

The feast, its promise, and how to keep it.

Christ asked St. Faustina for a feast of mercy on the Sunday after Easter, and St. John Paul II established it for the universal Church in 2000. It is the one feast in the calendar instituted in response to a private revelation, and it carries a promise unlike any other in Catholic devotion.

How to Keep the Feast

1. Go to Confession — during Lent or in the days around the feast.
2. Receive Holy Communion on Divine Mercy Sunday itself.
3. Venerate the image of the Divine Mercy.
4. Pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet, ideally at three o’clock.
5. Perform an act of mercy toward a neighbour — in deed, word or prayer.

The Novena

The Divine Mercy Novena is prayed on the nine days from Good Friday to the eve of the feast, bringing a different group of souls to God’s mercy each day.

The Promise

Our Lord promised that the soul who goes to Confession and receives Communion on this day receives complete forgiveness of sins and punishment. The Church has attached a plenary indulgence to the day under the usual conditions. Whatever one makes of the extraordinary language of the promise, the Church’s own grant is clear, and the conditions are the ordinary ones: confession, Communion, prayer for the Holy Father’s intentions, and detachment from all sin.

About This Feast

St. John Paul II established the feast at the canonisation of Faustina Kowalska on 30 April 2000, and died five years later on the vigil of the feast. The image, with its two rays of red and pale light, was painted under Faustina’s direction and bears one instruction: Jesus, I trust in You.