This is Divine Mercy Sunday, declared such by John Paul II, April 30, 2000. I offer you a few thoughts this morning on three people who were connected with the city of Cracow in Poland.

The three are John Paul II, Sister Marie Faustina Kowalska and Rudolph Hess. They were not precisely contemporaries, but people of our time.

John Paul, Karol Wojtila, was made bishop of Cracow in 1963, a cardinal in 1967, and Pope in 1978. Sister Faustina died in 1938, a Sister of Our Lady of Mercy. Rudolph Hess was executed in Cracow in 1947.

It was the Archbishop of Cracow, Karol Wojtila, who asked one of his local theologians to do a critical analysis of the writings of the Sister. Fr. Ignatius Rozycki was unwilling to do so because for many years he had deep suspicions about the reputed sanctity of Sister Faustina, and above all with regard to the revelations attributed to her. He thought her a simple woman, very pious, the victim of hallucinations with an undercurrent of hysteria, the heroism  of her life a lost cause. So he wanted no part in the proceedings begun by the Archbishop of Cracow.

Later, out of simple curiosity, he began to read the diaries about which he had so much negative opinion and ended up by being converted by them to a new view of the nun. He spent ten years in an exhaustive study and produced a strictly scientific work published after her death in 1983.

The sister’s writings had been condemned by the Vatican in 1958, a decision instigated by John XXIII in 1959, and the prohibition declared no longer binding in 1978. She was beatified in 1992 by Pope John Paul and canonized in the year 2000. On the latter occasion he declared the Sunday after Easter “Divine Mercy Sunday.”

In the prison in Cracow was confined Rudolf Hess, the Nazi in charge of the Auschwitz concentration camp and directly responsible for the death of three million Jews. He was tried at Nuremberg and Warsaw, confessed, and was condemned to death.

In Cracow in his solitary confinement he heard the bell of the local Carmel. That began a return to the Faith of his childhood and the whole process of healing and forgiveness.

He eventually asked for a priest and eventually a priest was found, Fr. Ladislav Lohn, S.J., provincial of the Jesuit southern province in Poland.

He went to the convent where Sister Faustina had lived and asked all the Sisters to pray earnestly while he went to the prison to hear the confession of Hess. Which he did. It took two hours. Hess was reconciled with the Church, made his confession, next day with tears in his eyes he received Holy Communion. He then wrote his wife and five children, expressed sorrow for his crimes, begged forgiveness of the people of Poland. He was executed April 16, 1947.

You have no doubt heard this remarkable story. I used to tell it frequently in the retreat house. As might be expected, the response was not universally positive. Some were not impressed. Said he should go to Hell and deserved to.

My response was not only the emphasis on the reality of God’s mercy, but also the teaching on Purgatory. I’d say, “You know he could be, and gladly so, in Purgatory, until the end of time. But in the end, he will be saved. He will be saved.”

We are sinners, all. And we are all indebted to that Mercy. We thank God that we have not done worse, are grateful for His solicitude.

I am not sure how much status mercy has in capitalist society, whether it is always mentioned in one’s resume. I am sometimes disturbed by the glee expressed by families who have been victims of tragedy, how they witness the perpetrator of the crime condemned to death or life imprisonment. Let that pass...

Capitalist or not, I’d say monks and nuns, not to say Christians, are to be a people of mercy. They are familiar with the works of mercy, spiritual and corporal, and practice them:

God of Mercy, be merciful to us all.  Amen