April 19-20, 2025
Dear parishioners,
Blessings to all of you as we celebrate this most glorious day of the Resurrection! As was sung in the beautifully worded Easter Proclamation at the Easter Vigil:
“This is the night, when Christ broke the prison bars of death and rose victorious from the underworld. Our birth would have been no gain, had we not been redeemed. O wonder of your humble care for us! O love, O charity beyond all telling, to ransom a slave you gave away your Son! O truly necessary sin of Adam, destroyed completely by the Death of Christ! O happy fault that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!”
I hope you have a chance to celebrate Christ’s victory over sin and death today with your family and/or friends. As we do, we keep in mind that the joy of this victory should stay with us all year long. Every time we receive the sacraments, we truly participate in the power of his sacrifice on the cross, and the glory of his Resurrection. The grace we receive in the sacraments conforms our mind and heart to Jesus’ own Sacred Heart; it is the sacraments that make it possible for us to concretely put the Commandments into practice and therefore to attain virtue, to please God, and to eventually obtain eternal life.
Please join us for our annual Divine Mercy Sunday devotions next Sunday afternoon, April 27! We will begin with Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament at 1:00 in the Paulding church. At that same time, the sacrament of Reconciliation will be offered; I am very grateful that two of my brother priests will be joining me in hearing confessions that day. During the time of Exposition and confessions, our relic of St. Faustina will be on display and all present are welcome to offer an act of devotion or reverence to her relic; the most common way of making this happen is simply kissing the small reliquary. However, this is not necessary and the relic can be venerated without actually touching the reliquary itself. Then, at 3:00 we will begin our devotions. We will start with sung vespers at 3:00, and then we will proceed to the sung Divine Mercy Chaplet immediately after. Once the chaplet is completed, we will close the afternoon with Benediction.
I know there has been some confusion in the past few years regarding our devotions on Divine Mercy Sunday, so I would like to clarify a few items in the hope of avoiding the same confusion this year. Firstly, I would like to kindly remind everyone that there will not be an afternoon Mass as part of the devotions for that day. In the past, we have never had a great turnout for Sunday afternoon Masses, so we want to focus on doing the devotions reverently and well. Additionally, and more practically, this means we will not have to make a rushed transition into preparing for Mass once the devotions are finished.
Secondly, I know there has been some confusion in the past about meeting the requirements for the plenary indulgence that can be obtained on Divine Mercy Sunday. The normal conditions for gaining a plenary indulgence are sacramental confession, Eucharistic Communion, and prayer for the intention of the Sovereign Pontiff (the pope). Please note that the Church’s Manual of Indulgences states that, “The three conditions may be fulfilled several days before or after the performance of the prescribed work.” While it does not specify, the general rule of thumb is that the conditions may be fulfilled a week before or a week after the prescribed work. This means that one does not need to repeat sacramental confession if it has been done in the prior week. This also means that, if mortal sin prevents someone from receiving Communion at morning Mass next Sunday, that person can still attend the devotions and make a sacramental confession that afternoon, and then receive Communion within a week (for example, the following Sunday) to fulfill the requirements for the indulgence. Of course, if one finds himself in mortal sin, he should go to confession as soon as possible, and not wait until Sunday afternoon!
Blessings,
Fr. Ammanniti
