RICHMOND, VA. (Catholic Online) - Our Resurrected Lord Jesus entreated us during the Octave of Easter that we open our hearts fully to His Fount of Divine Mercy, His Most Sacred Heart, from which pour His every grace and favor in perfect Love. On Divine Mercy Sunday the Church celebrated the unfathomable depths of God's mercy that emanate from His Love, a love that has suffered passionately for us and conquered death to bring new life eternally at Easter to those who believe.

In the message of Divine Mercy, Jesus expresses His intimate desire to enter into the temple of our heart, but for Him to be able to enter we first must open the door of our heart to His Divine Love.  Jesus gently knocks at our door and awaits our response, reassuring us not to be afraid but rather to trust always in Him.  Only in opening our hearts to Him may we plunge into the depths of the flows of love and mercy that emanate from Jesus' Sacred Heart. 

Since the fourth century, Saint Augustine has taught the Christian Faithful that the Living Water pouring eternally forth from the Heart of Jesus is none other than the birth waters of the Church in the Sacrament of Baptism.  The Church is born precisely at the moment that the Roman soldier's lance pierces open the Sacred Heart of our Lord.  The cleansing waters of Baptism, alongside the passionately loving water of the Most Holy Eucharist, flow sacramentally from the Heart of Christ to water the souls of the People of God, bringing us to realize the steadfast and saving hope found only in a personal encounter and relationship with our All-Merciful Lord.
 
The newly beatified John Paul II the Great considered his preaching on the love and mercy of our Lord to be central to the mission of his pontificate, as we see in his great encyclical letter on Divine Mercy, Dives in misericordia (DM).  The words of the Blessed Apostle of Divine Mercy echo now for all future generations concerning our celebration of the profound mercy of our Lord:

"The Church must consider it one of her principal duties -- at every stage of history and especially in our modern age -- to proclaim and to introduce into life the mystery of mercy, supremely revealed in Jesus Christ.  Not only for the Church herself as the community of believers but also in a certain sense for all humanity, this mystery is the source of a life different from the life which can be built by man ."

Pope Benedict XVI, at his Regina Caeli message of April 6, 2008, told the participants at the conclusion of the first World Apostolic Congress on Mercy that the Church holds in her grasp a Divine Mercy mandate to be fulfilled:  "I address my cordial greeting which now becomes a mandate: Go forth and be witnesses of God's mercy, a source of hope for every person and for the whole world. May the Risen Lord be with you always!" 

In Pope John Paul II's last Divine Mercy message, which he had prepared for his Regina Caeli message for April 3, 2005 and was delivered posthumously, the beloved Blessed intimated to the world: "As a gift to humanity, which sometimes seems bewildered and overwhelmed by the power of evil, selfishness and fear, the Risen Lord offers His love that pardons, reconciles and reopens hearts to love.  It is a love that converts hearts and gives peace.  How much the world needs to understand and accept Divine Mercy!"

For us to understand better Blessed John Paul's heart concerning the mercy of God, it is important to reflect on key events in the pope's life as related to Divine Mercy.  His mother died when he was 9, his brother Edmund passed away when he was 12, and his father departed this life when he was 21. So for the rest of his earthly life Pope Wojtyła was able to enter with deep attention toward the People of God as being his family.  In this profound personal rapport with couples and families throughout his pontificate, the Blessed dramatically ministered to the importance of authentic marriage and family as witness to God's love and mercy in our world. 

Immersing himself in prayer and the Sacraments, his spirituality was one of sharing friendship with the Holy Spirit and a deep love of our Lady, abandoning himself to the embrace of the Blessed Mother of God, according to the Holy Father's Vicar of Rome Agostino Cardinal Vallini in his presentation of John Paul II to Pope Benedict XVI for beatification on Sunday morning.  Cardinal Vallini highlighted the importance of Blessed John Paul II's focus on Totus Tuus as containing the beloved Pontiff's secret to seeing the world through the eyes of the Mother of God, using a theme taken from the meditations of Saint Louis de Montfort.

The Cardinal Vicar elaborated that through petitioning the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Blessed John Paul gave witness to Christ ...