Divine Mercy Sunday was established by Pope John Paul II in 2000 to commemorate the visions a Polish nun had of the amazing, unlimited mercy of Christ!  Her visions fill a book, but at the simplest level can be boiled down to two basic points:

God is completely worthy of our trust in every way!  He is our loving Father who not only wants the best for us, but has the power to give it.  If we approach the Lord with a child-like trust, He is sure to answer our prayers.

God’s mercy is endless – we can’t even imagine it’s depth!  On one occasion, Sister Faustina had a vision in which Jesus told her “I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the fount of My mercy.  The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion shall obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment.  On that day all the divine floodgates through which grace flow are opened. Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its sins be as scarlet.  My mercy is so great that no mind, be it of man or of angel, will be able to fathom it throughout all eternity.  Everything that exists has come forth from the very depths of My most tender mercy.  Every soul in its relation to Me will I contemplate My love and mercy throughout eternity.”

There are two activities for this lesson, something silly and something serious.  The silly one is full of terrible puns that will make this lesson memorable for everyone.  As the lesson says, “It’s a whopper of a deal!”

The second activity is to learn and pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy.  You’ll want to start by listening to a brief history on the CD included in your Home Lesson.  It’s helpful and interesting, and you really couldn’t have an easier lesson time.  The best part about it though may be that the entire Chaplet of Divine Mercy is on the disk, so you can simply pray along.  The Chaplet is prayed using a Rosary to help keep track, but has a couple elements that your kids might especially like.  First of all, it’s shorter than the Rosary (sometimes a bonus for wiggly kids).  The entire prayer takes less than 10 minutes from start to finish!  Second, it’s often set to music.  The simple chant makes it super-easy to learn and even after praying it once, I’ll bet your kids have their memory verses memorized for this month.  (You can learn the chant version here.)

*James 5:11