The Sunday after Easter was for years known as Low Sunday in the Roman calendar, but Pope John Paul II changed that arrangement ten years ago, when he renamed the Sunday in the Easter Octave, calling it Divine Mercy Sunday. Alluding to the writings of St Faustina, Pope John Paul II emphasised that Divine Mercy Sunday was a day when even the most troubled and sinful souls might find comfort and solace. Divine Mercy Sunday has since been marked in Catholic countries across the globe, but nowhere more so than in Poland.

The Pope who created Divine Mercy Sunday himself died five years later. His death was on the Vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday, and as we reported in hidden europe in May 2005, on that particular Sunday (3 April 2005), there was a great outpouring of grief in towns and villages across Poland.

Today is Divine Mercy Sunday, and once again Poland mourns. One should not read too much into calendrical coincidences, but those who map their way through each year by the ecclesiastical calendar must surely be wondering what awful catastrophes might be awaiting Poland in the days prior to Divine Mercy Sunday five years hence.

Nicky Gardner and Susanne Kries
( hidden europe)