During the course of Jesus' revelations to Saint
Faustina on the Divine Mercy He asked on numerous occasions that a feast day be
dedicated to the Divine Mercy and that this feast be celebrated on the Sunday
after Easter. The liturgical texts of that day, the 2nd Sunday of Easter,
concern the institution of the Sacrament of Penance, the Tribunal of the Divine
Mercy, and are thus already suited to the request of Our Lord. This Feast,
which had already been granted to the nation of Poland and been celebrated
within Vatican City, was granted to the Universal Church by Saint John Paul II
on the occasion of the canonization of Sr. Faustina on 30 April 2000. In a
decree dated 23 May 2000, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the
Discipline of the Sacraments stated that "throughout the world the Second
Sunday of Easter will receive the name Divine Mercy Sunday, a perennial
invitation to the Christian world to face, with confidence in divine
benevolence, the difficulties and trials that mankind will experience in the
years to come." These papal acts represent the highest endorsement that
the Church can give to a private revelation, an act of papal infallibility
proclaiming the certain sanctity of the mystic, and the granting of a universal
feast, as requested by Our Lord to St. Faustina.
