Over 300 turn up for Divine Mercy celebration

KOTA KINABALU – Over 300 turned up for the Divine Mercy celebration at the Sacred Heart Cathedral here on 23 Apr 2017 – Divine Mercy Sunday.

The celebration was held after the 10:45 am BM Mass.

Father Joshua Liew blessed the shrine with a copy of the original image of the Divine Mercy after the Mass as well as the different images of the Divine Mercy brought by some of the 350 devotees.

Henry Liew, coordinator of the Sacred Heart Divine Mercy Apostolate, gave an exhortation before the trilingual Prayers of the Faithful and the chanting of the Litany of the Divine Mercy.

Then all adjourned to the right wing of the parish centre for a potluck fellowship.

The devotees prepared themselves for the feast by a nine-day novena starting on Good Friday Apr 14.

The devotion was spread by St Faustina Kowalska, an uneducated Polish nun, in the 1930s.  She wrote a diary of about 500 pages recording the revelations she received about God’s mercy.  It had the support of St John Paul II who wrote an encyclical entitled Dives in Misericordia (Rich in Mercy) in 1981.  He designated the Second Sunday of Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday on 30 Apr 2000.

The devotion consists of (1) Chaplet to the Divine Mercy (2) Novena which begins on Good Friday and ends on Easter Saturday and (3) the Hour of Mercy – 3 O’Clock Prayer & Stations of the Cross.

The devotion spread to Sabah in 1998 and first took root in St Michael Penampang before spreading to other parishes.

The devotion started in Sacred Heart Cathedral Parish in September 2007 under Henry and Jenny Liew.  The devotion in English is held on Saturdays at 2 pm; in BM on Sundays at 2 pm while the chaplet is recited in Chinese before the 7 am Mass on Sundays.