• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Effie Caldarola
          • John Garvey
          • Father Ed Dougherty, M.M.
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
  • CR Radio
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe

Now is time to build new world without inequality, injustice, pope says

April 19, 2020
By Carol Glatz
Filed Under: Coronavirus, News, Vatican, Video, World News

An image of Jesus of Divine Mercy is seen as Pope Francis celebrates Mass marking the feast of Divine Mercy at the Church of the Holy Spirit near the Vatican in Rome April 19, 2020. The church houses a sanctuary dedicated to Divine Mercy. (CNS photo/Vatican Media) See POPE-DIVINE-MERCY April 19, 2020.

ROME (CNS) — As the world slowly recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a risk it will be struck by an even worse virus — that of selfish indifference, Pope Francis said.

This dangerous virus is “spread by the thought that life is better if it is better for me and that everything will be fine if it is fine for me. It begins there and ends up selecting one person over another, discarding the poor and sacrificing those left behind on the altar of progress,” he said in his homily at a Mass on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 19.

The current pandemic instead must compel people to prepare for a “collective future” that sees the whole human family as one and holds all of the earth’s gifts in common in order to be shared justly with those in need, he said.

“This is not some ideology: it is Christianity,” and it mirrors the way the early Christian community lived, the pope said at the Mass, celebrated privately at Rome’s Church of the Holy Spirit, which houses a shrine dedicated to Divine Mercy.

The Mass was celebrated on the 20th anniversary of St. John Paul II’s declaration that the Sunday after Easter would be celebrated as Divine Mercy Sunday. The Divine Mercy movement was founded in the early 1900s by Polish St. Faustina Kowalska, who said Jesus told her he wanted a feast of Divine Mercy as a refuge and shelter for all souls.

In his homily, Pope Francis noted that St. Faustina said Jesus told her, “I am love and mercy itself; there is no human misery that could measure up to my mercy.”

The Lord always patiently and faithfully waits for people to recognize their failings and sins and to offer them to him “so that he can help us experience his mercy,” the pope said.

 

Even the disciples, and especially St. Thomas, experienced fear and doubt, failing to believe in the risen Lord right away, the pope said.

Jesus doesn’t scold them with a sermon because “he wants us to see him not as a taskmaster with whom we have to settle accounts, but as our father who always raises us up,” just like any father would when his child falls, the pope said.

“The hand that always puts us back on our feet is mercy: God knows that without mercy we will remain on the ground, that in order to keep walking, we need to be put back on our feet,” he said.

Right now, he said, the world is undergoing a “time of trial” and, like St. Thomas, “with our fears and our doubts, (we) have experienced our frailty. We need the Lord, who sees beyond that frailty an irrepressible beauty,” like a crystal that is delicate, but precious and transparent before God who lets his light of mercy “shine in us and through us in the world.”

The most beautiful message on the feast of Divine Mercy, the pope said, comes from St. Thomas, “the disciple who arrived late,” but for whom the Lord waited, not leaving him behind.

“Now while we are looking ahead to a slow and arduous recovery from the pandemic, there is a danger that we will forget those who are left behind. The risk is that we may then be struck by an even worse virus, that of selfish indifference,” he said.

The COVID-19 pandemic “reminds us that there are no differences or borders between those who suffer,” he said. “We are all frail, all equal, all precious.”

“May we be profoundly shaken by what is happening all around us: the time has come to eliminate inequalities, to heal the injustice that is undermining the health of the entire human family,” the pope urged.

“Let us welcome this time of trial as an opportunity to prepare for our collective future,” the pope said, because without a vision that embraces everyone, “there will be no future for anyone.”

“Let us show mercy to those who are most vulnerable for only in this way will we build a new world,” he said.

The prayers of the faithful at the Mass asked God for consolation, mercy and strength for the church, government leaders, priests, Christians, health-care workers, volunteers and the homeless during the global pandemic.

“May priests always administer the sacrament of reconciliation with a merciful heart and in this period of enforced solitude, may they offer forgiveness and consolation through every means,” one petition prayed.

“May all the baptized not let themselves be intimidated by the inconveniences and sufferings from these weeks, but may they know how to give spiritual comfort and material support generously to all those who are in a precarious situation,” said another petition.

After Mass, before praying the “Regina Coeli,” the pope said Christians must respond to life’s storms with mercy and compassion toward everyone, especially those who suffer, are abandoned or in need.

“May Christian mercy also inspire the just sharing among nations and their institutions in order to face the current crisis in solidarity,” he said.

The pope ended his midday address by offering Easter greetings to Orthodox and Eastern Catholics celebrating according to the Julian calendar and thanking those Eastern-rite Catholics who were also celebrating the same day as a gesture of ecumenism and fraternity.

Because of restrictions in place to curb the spread of the coronavirus, the Divine Mercy Mass was celebrated without the presence of the public, with only a small choir and with only two concelebrants: Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization, and Msgr. Jozef Bart, the church rector.

St. John Paul visited the church in 1995 and canonized St. Faustina in 2000, proclaiming the second Sunday of Easter as Mercy Sunday throughout the world. The Polish pope’s death in 2005 came on the eve of Mercy Sunday, and his beatification in 2011 and canonization in 2014 were celebrated on Mercy Sunday.

Print Print

Primary Sidebar

Carol Glatz

Catholic News Service is a leading agency for religious news. Its mission is to report fully, fairly and freely on the involvement of the church in the world today.

View all posts from this author

For the latest news delivered twice a week via email or text message, sign up to receive our free enewsletter.

| MOST POPULAR |

  • Archdiocese dispenses with meatless obligation for St. Patrick’s Day
  • Pathfinders: Five Archdiocese of Baltimore women who made history
  • Trainor to retire from post as Mount St. Mary’s president in 2024
  • Movie Review: ’65’
  • Sister Mary Kathleen Marie Saffa dies at 86

| Latest Local News |

Sister Joan Cooper, O.S.F., dies at 94

Pathfinders: Five Archdiocese of Baltimore women who made history

Sister Elizabeth Ellen Kane, O.S.F., dies at 81

| Latest World News |

Church calls for ‘international protection of holy sites’ after attack on church at Tomb of the Virgin Mary in Jerusalem

Papal message to focus on people’s right not to migrate

Medically changing person’s sex characteristics to those of opposite sex ‘not morally justified,’ say bishops

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • Church calls for ‘international protection of holy sites’ after attack on church at Tomb of the Virgin Mary in Jerusalem
  • Sister Joan Cooper, O.S.F., dies at 94
  • Papal message to focus on people’s right not to migrate
  • Medically changing person’s sex characteristics to those of opposite sex ‘not morally justified,’ say bishops
  • Pope Francis is praised in U.N. talks for efforts to combat anti-Muslim prejudice
  • Pathfinders: Five Archdiocese of Baltimore women who made history
  • Legendary communist-era priest, Father Blachnicki, was murdered, Polish authorities confirm
  • Do not be afraid to be a witness to God’s love, pope says
  • Question Corner: Jesus became man so I could become God?

Search

Membership

Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2023 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED