Click here to subscribe today or Login.
LAFLIN — On a very rainy Sunday, one week after Easter back in 1996, Cathy Mack went to her church in Pittston and felt her eyes drawn to a brochure on a table.
It was an invitation to something with which she was not yet familiar — Divine Mercy Sunday — and it contained what she considered a captivating picture of Jesus.
“Now, I’m not the holy of holies,” said Mack, who is a retired teacher of French and Spanish, “but it was like a spell came over me when I saw that image. Rays of blood and water are coming from his pure heart.”
That afternoon she went to the Divine Mercy services at Sts. Peter and Paul Church in Plains for a Mass she described as part of “a beautiful, 3-hour devotion,” and heard the story of St. Faustina, a Polish nun who reported seeing miraculous visions of Jesus Christ before her death at age 33 in 1938.
Various area churches have held such annual services, and Mack soon joined the effort.
This year, she is organizing the ninth annual regional celebration of Divine Mercy Sunday in the Pittston area, set to begin at 1 p.m. April 12 at St. Maria Goretti Church at 42 Redwood Drive.
Mack, along with many other Catholics, believes St. Faustina acted as a kind of secretary on Jesus’s behalf, to bring a message from him to everyone in the world.
“She was the vessel that Jesus used,” Mack said. “Basically, he’s telling the world, not just her, that he’s coming with his love and mercy before he comes as a just judge. The flood gates are open, and all your sins can be forgiven.”
The devotions at St. Maria Goretti’s church will begin at 1 p.m. with six or seven priests hearing confessions. Shortly after 2 p.m. a Mass will begin and at 3 p.m. there will be exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, the praying of the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, the rosary, benediction and individual blessings with a first-class relic of St. Faustina.
Mack said she believes such devotions may have brought miracles into her life. Her elderly father suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and pneumonia, yet lived six more years. Her mother had a stroke, but recovered and enjoyed four more years. Mack herself had been told she might need surgery, and remembers praying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy at 3 p.m. — the time of day Christians believe Jesus died — while waiting for the results of a medical test. The doctor told her she didn’t need surgery after all.
“Three miracles,” she said.
“I feel this is my mission. I love doing it,” she said of her involvement in the Divine Mercy movement, which has led her to organize an annual bus trip to the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Massachusetts each October on St. Faustina’s feast day.
Divine Mercy Sunday was important to Pope John Paul II, Mack said, explaining he canonized St. Faustina on April 30, 2000, which was the first Sunday after Easter that year.
She said that on Dec. 8, Pope Francis will begin an Extraordinary Jubilee Holy Year of Mercy and she is looking forward to that.
As for the April 12 observances at St. Maria Goretti, Mack said 400 people attended last year and there might be more this year.
“We’re looking forward to a full church and a wonderful service and homily,” said Frank Pasquini of Wilkes-Barre, who will take part in the liturgy as a reader. “I’m essentially a newcomer, but I’ve reviewed a lot of the literature and online resources and I think this will bring a sense of peace and reconciliation to a troubled world.”