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Mercy Sunday 2010
By Deacon Lawrence N. Kaas
April 11, 2010
April 11, 2010
It is the very Mercy of God that make us who and what we are. It is the Mercy of God through whom we receive the talent that fulfills the plan of God in our lives and in the Church for that matter.
It is now 28 years that we have celebrated Mercy Sunday here in this church. It was in the later part of 1980 that I became aware of what has come to be called Devotion to the Divine Mercy. What I want to share with you isn't about me but what God can do through a simple member of His flock.
I am by nature one who works with his hands and for that reason even before 1980 I was seriously considering giving up wood carving because of the pain in my hands. But because this was not a part of God's plan for me, and because I had attended a service here in this church and experienced a reality that my hands no long hurt. Now I wondered, what is God's plan?
It wasn't long when I was approached by one of the men that come to be called the Mercy gang. Would I carve and image of the Divine Mercy. I said to my wife, he doesn't know what he is asking? Wasn't long when again one of the members of the Mercy Gang showed me a paper with the story of the Divine Mercy. By this time all of you here know full well the story. Then having met with the rest of the men, I told them, OK I'll carve Divine Mercy and you guys do the rest. If you want to hear God laugh tell Him what you will or won't do.
By the early Spring of 81 the carving was done. It should have taken much longer but for some reason business was slow. But as I recall we were able to pay our bills, so what more can one ask.
There is so much to this story we don't have time to share, for example how was the carving accomplished according to the Diary of St. Faustina when we hadn't ever seen it at this time? How was it completed in an iconic style, that is a style of the East. How was Mercy Sunday declared here in Sauk Centre long before it was declared in Rome?
Then a new twist came to be when one day Father Todd asked me to carve St. Faustina. I responded that my hand had become so painful that I just couldn't even think about it. Well I did think about it and prayed about it and decided that wanted to do it. So the next time I saw Father I told him I would carve St. Faustina, but no time limit, when she's done she is done.
With the help of Dentist friend we made a cast of Mary's face of a Carving that stand in my shop, along with a cast of her hands and these were used to complete the carving of St. Faustina.
She now stand in the wall of the Confession room here in the back of the Church. Were better place for her to stand guard then at the seat of Mercy. Welcoming the repentant and declaring the Mercy of God with the words at her feet, "Jesus I trust in You!
A simple reminder: There is no place on earth that has what we have here in this Church. Two wood carvings centered in the devotion to Divine Mercy, carved by a simple member of God's flock. No one else has such as we have and I have promised not to make copies.
'Thank you' to Deacon Kaas, for letting me post his reflection here.
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