The Rays of Divine Mercy

The image of Jesus King of the Divine Mercy shows our Lord pointing to His Heart where rays of light shine forth. Pope Benedict, in Spe Salvi, his encyclical on Christian hope speaks of the transformative power of this rays of light or fire of love:

Some recent theologians are of the opinion that the fire which both burns and saves is Christ himself, the Judge and Saviour. The encounter with him is the decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation. His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire”. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God (SS no. 47).

May the flame of love and mercy from the heart of Jesus, King of Mercy truly transform us as it did St Thomas, from a doubter to a believer.

Painting by Bernardo Strozzi; Oil on canvas, 89 x 98.2 cm

He Descended Into Hell

On Black Saturday, when we recall the day Christ was in the tomb, we also reflect on the phrase in the Creed, "He descended into the dead." Pope Benedict offers the following reflections from his latest encyclical Spe Salvi:

Christ descended into “Hell” and is therefore close to those cast into it, transforming their darkness into light. Suffering and torment is still terrible and well- nigh unbearable. Yet the star of hope has risen—the anchor of the heart reaches the very throne of God. Instead of evil being unleashed within man, the light shines victorious: suffering—without ceasing to be suffering—becomes, despite everything, a hymn of praise (SS 37).

Pope Benedict spoke of these points when he talked about suffering as setting for learning hope. To illustrate what hell is like, he used the experience of Vietnamese martyr, Paul Le Bao-Tinh, who amidst all the violence and cruelties of the prison, was able to find hope... precisely in his faith in Jesus Christ.

May, we, too, experience Jesus descending into the "hells of our lives" and transforming our darkness into the light of Easter!

Praying these Holy Days

These next three days, the Paschal Triduum, when we remember the great events of our faith, the mysteries of our faith, the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord, we are asked to pray more intensely. Hence we see many Christians, as individuals or in groups, flocking to Catholic Churches to spend time in quiet prayer before the Lord, especially during the Visita Iglesia or Vigil before the Blessed Sacrament Holy Thursday night.

Pope Benedict says something beautiful and worth noting when we pray these next three days and all throughout our life:

"To pray is not to step outside history and withdraw to our own private corner of happiness. When we pray properly we undergo a process of inner purification which opens us up to God and thus to our fellow human beings as well.

We must learn that we cannot pray against others. We must learn that we cannot ask for the superficial and comfortable things that we desire at this moment—that meagre, misplaced hope that leads us away from God. We must learn to purify our desires and our hopes (Spe Salvi 33).

Indeed, may we truly be purified by our prayers these days and be mindful of the needs of others and lift them up to God together with our own.

Eternal Life... What is It?

What kind of life is Jesus offering when he says, "“I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die”?

Pope Benedict helps us reflect on this question with these excerpts from his latest encyclical Spe Salvi:

Obviously there is a contradiction in our attitude, which points to an inner contradiction in our very existence. On the one hand, we do not want to die; above all, those who love us do not want us to die. Yet on the other hand, neither do we want to continue living indefinitely… To continue living for ever —endlessly—appears more like a curse than a gift. Death, admittedly, one would wish to postpone for as long as possible. But to live always, without end—this, all things considered, can only be monotonous and ultimately unbearable (SS 11).

To imagine ourselves outside the temporality that imprisons us and in some way to sense that eternity is not an unending succession of days in the calendar, but something more like the supreme moment of satisfaction, in which totality embraces us and we embrace totality—this we can only attempt. It would be like plunging into the ocean of infinite love, a moment in which time—the before and after—no longer exists. We can only attempt to grasp the idea that such a moment is life in the full sense, a plunging ever anew into the vastness of being, in which we are simply overwhelmed with joy (SS 12).

Each of us has a desire waiting to be fulfilled, a wish waiting to come true, ultimately it is the desire for this eternal life being offered by Jesus Christ. But oftentimes, these are buried deep in our hearts, under our earthly, carnal and fleeting desires which we often mistake to be the lasting and truest desires. Like Lazarus in the grave, this desire for eternal life, for that supreme moment of satisfaction in which totality embraces us and we embrace totality…is waiting to be called by Jesus,. O

n this last week of Lent, as we come closer to Holy Week, let us allow Jesus to visit our graves, and call to life our deepest and truest desires by breathing the Spirit of life into our hearts, for He is our only hope and by this hope in Him, we are saved. Spe Salvi factus sumus.