Before I forget it, I want to record my impressions of Divine Mercy Sunday the way it should be done.
Actually, I'll never forget it. I'll be reminded of it every year, on what so many priests still call 'Low Sunday'.
I was in Melbourne that day, at the church my son usually attends, which shall be nameless. Seeing no indication of the Feast in the foyer or parish newsletter, I asked the nice welcome person if he knew where in Melbourne it might be celebrated. He didn't know. "Ask Father," he said.
Father didn't know either. But the nice welcome person came to our pew with a three-page handout which told me all I needed to know.
That afternoon at 3 p m, after lunch with friends at Como, a stately Melbourne home, our son dropped me at Holy Cross Church in .Caulfield South. Holy Cross is a large church. Inside it's even larger than the brick exterior would indicate.
It was jam-packed. Up front in the sanctuary on the altar in front of the tabernacle (centrally situated) the Blessed Sacrament was exposed. To the right was the largest Divine Mercy I'd ever seen, framed and decorated with fresh flowers. To the left, images of Pope St John Paul II and the Polish nun he canonized, St Faustina Kowalska, who received the Divine Mercy messages from Jesus Christ (more flowers).
Many people had been there one and a half hours already. This I learned from a woman who together with a male companion seemed to be big-time promoters of the devotion, and pretty professional they were about it too.
They each spoke briefly and we all prayed the Divine Mercy Chaplet. That much I expected; that's what I'm used to here in New Zealand. But wait, there's more. I'm not sure whether it was before or after Solemn Benediction (clouds of incense) when the woman MC asked if anyone present had not been to confession.
In all that crowded church, I didn't see a single hand go up.
Then Holy Mass was concelebrated by three priests, with traditional hymns printed on leaflets sung by choir and congregation, with a very competent organist accompanying. I knew every one of those hymns and they all made sense theologically. Thanking the priests, the female MC informed told us that the chief celebrant, a youngish, accented European, had been hearing confessions for five hours.
And then we were all invited to process again to the sanctuary to venerate first-class relics of Ss John Paul II and Faustina Kowalska while the organist played, his eyes not on the music or on his instrument but on the slow procession up the long aisle of men, women and children.
It was about 5 o'clock when I caught a tram back to our son's apartment in St Kilda. A woman on the tram, who'd been in the church, was eating bread rolls out of a plastic bag. "Would you like some bread to eat?" she asked me. I thanked her and said no.
I'd already eaten Bread, of the divine kind. I wished I could share It, Divine Mercy Itself, with all New Zealand. And all the world.
Thank you, Holy Cross Church, Caulfield South, Melbourne Australia.
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