“You cannot conceive, nor can I, of the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God.”
This haunting line from Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock always echoes in my heart around Divine Mercy Sunday. In the novel’s final scene, a priest says this to a grieving young woman. She dares to hope that her murderous husband may have found forgiveness before death. The priest gives no false comfort. Instead, he offers a glimpse into something mysterious and unsettling: the mercy of God.
We often think of mercy as gentle or comforting, but mercy is also strange and surprising. It doesn’t follow our ideas of fairness or justice. It reaches out to the criminal, the adulterer, even to those involved in abortion. This mercy calls each of us to remember who we truly are: beloved, redeemed children of God.
Divine Mercy is shocking because it meets us at our worst moments. It asks only that we let ourselves be loved. It does not excuse sin. Instead, it destroys despair. It shows us a truth that is hard to believe: no one, not even the most broken or hopeless person, is beyond Christ’s reach.
For those who seek healing through Project Rachel’s ministry, this strange mercy often feels like it is too much to grasp. For a mother mourning the loss of her aborted child, it can seem impossible. One of our biggest missions in this ministry is to fight the lie of hopelessness. Many believe they are too far gone for God’s love. But these are exactly the people God longs to reach.
St. Faustina writes in her diary, “The greater the sinner, the greater the right he has to My mercy.”
This idea is hard for many of us to understand. It doesn’t match the way we think about fairness in our culture. And that is what makes it so appalling and so beautiful. Not one of us deserves God’s love and mercy, but He offers it anyway.
At the end of this month, several women will attend a one-day retreat for healing after abortion. We hope this retreat will be the start of a journey toward peace and restoration.
Please consider praying for these women. We are organizing a one-day Eucharistic prayer campaign on May 31st. Our goal is to have every hour of the retreat covered in prayer before Jesus in the Eucharist. As St. Faustina reminds us, God’s “mercy is endless and the treasury of compassion inexhaustible.”
Click here to offer a holy hour for Project Rachel retreatants on Saturday May 31st.
By: Emily Branscum