The Second Sunday of Easter closes the Octave of Easter and is celebrated as a solemnity of the Lord. On April 30, 2000, at the canonization of Saint Faustina Kowalska, Pope Saint John Paul II announced that from then on this Sunday would also be called Divine Mercy Sunday throughout the Church, and the Congregation for Divine Worship confirmed the title by decree shortly afterward. The name adds nothing to the Sunday's rank or texts; it names what the day's own liturgy already proclaims. The Gospel is the same in all three years of the Lectionary cycle: on the evening of the first day of the week the risen Lord stands among the disciples behind locked doors, shows them his wounds, breathes on them and says, "Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them," and eight days later meets the doubt of Thomas with the invitation to touch his side. The Easter octave thus ends with the institution of the sacrament of reconciliation and with the confession "My Lord and my God." The first reading describes the early community holding all things in common; the second speaks of the water and the blood that testify to Christ. The devotion associated with the day comes from Saint Faustina, a Polish Sister of Our Lady of Mercy who died in 1938 and whose spiritual diary records her call to spread trust in God's mercy. The image of the Merciful Jesus with the pale and red rays, the Chaplet of Divine Mercy prayed on rosary beads, and the novena begun on Good Friday are its principal forms. In 2002 the Apostolic Penitentiary attached a plenary indulgence to devout participation on this Sunday in devotions in honor of Divine Mercy, or to the recitation of the Our Father and the Creed with a pious invocation of the merciful Lord Jesus, under the usual conditions of sacramental confession, Holy Communion, and prayer for the intentions of the Holy Father.

Liturgical season

Easter

• John 20:19-31

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