Divine Mercy Sunday 2027: what it is and how to keep it
Eight days after Easter, the Church keeps a feast of God’s mercy. The date, Saint Faustina’s story, the image, the chaplet and the three o’clock hour.
The MySavior teamUpdated · 10 min read
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
Luke 6:36 · BSB
Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen Me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
John 20:29 · BSB
Divine Mercy Sunday is the Sunday after Easter, and in 2027 it falls on Sunday, April 4, 2027, one week after Easter Sunday on March 28, 2027. The Catholic Church gave the Second Sunday of Easter this name in 2000, on the day Pope John Paul II canonized Saint Faustina Kowalska, the Polish nun whose visions of Jesus began the devotion.
It is a feast with a plain message, and it sits in exactly the right place. The Gospel that Sunday finds the disciples behind locked doors, frightened and ashamed of how the week had gone. Jesus comes in and says “Peace be with you!” He does not bring up the night they ran. He shows them his wounds and sends them out to forgive.
Below: who Faustina was, what the image of Divine Mercy shows, how to pray the chaplet, why three o’clock matters, and a few verses from the Berean Standard Bible to carry through the week.
What the day is
Eight days after Easter
Easter is too large for one day, so the Church keeps it for eight, the Octave of Easter, and Divine Mercy Sunday closes it. The Sunday has older names too. In English it was Low Sunday, probably by contrast with the high feast a week before. In Latin it was Quasimodo Sunday, from the first words of the old entrance chant, taken from 1 Peter 2:2: “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk.” It suited the end of a week in which those baptized on Easter night had worn their white robes. Eastern churches call it Thomas Sunday, after the Gospel.
Because Easter moves, so does the feast: April 4, 2027 this time, and April 23, 2028 the year after.
The Gospel of the day
John 20:19
It was the first day of the week, and that very evening, while the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them. “Peace be with you!” He said to them.
John 20:19 · BSB
In all three years of the Catholic cycle of readings, the Gospel on this Sunday is John 20:19–31. On Easter evening the disciples have locked themselves in. Jesus stands among them anyway, and his first word is peace. Then he breathes on them and gives them authority to forgive sins, and that gift of forgiveness sits at the heart of the feast.
Thomas was not there. “Eight days later,” as John puts it, Jesus comes back for him and invites him to touch the wounds. Divine Mercy Sunday falls on that same eighth day.
Who she was
Saint Faustina, a housemaid who became a messenger
Helena Kowalska was born on August 25, 1905, in the village of Głogowiec in central Poland, the third of ten children in a poor, devout family. She had barely three years of school. At sixteen she went into service as a housekeeper, and on August 1, 1925, she entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in Warsaw, taking the name Maria Faustina. In the convent she worked as a cook, a gardener and a porter at the door.
On the night of February 22, 1931, in her cell in Płock, she wrote that Jesus appeared to her and asked for an image to be painted with the words “Jesus, I trust in You.” In Vilnius her confessor, Father Michał Sopoćko, took her seriously and asked her to keep a diary. Published as Divine Mercy in My Soul, it runs to about 700 printed pages. She died of tuberculosis in Kraków on October 5, 1938, at thirty-three.
The image
“Jesus, I trust in You”
The image shows Jesus in a white robe, his right hand raised in blessing and his left at his breast, where two rays stream out, one pale and one red. Faustina recorded that Jesus explained them himself: the pale ray stands for the water that makes souls righteous, the red one for the blood that is the life of souls. Beneath the figure runs the line she was given, in Polish Jezu, ufam Tobie.
The first version was painted in Vilnius in 1934 by Eugeniusz Kazimirowski, under the eyes of Faustina and Father Sopoćko. After wartime and Soviet-era wanderings it was restored, and since 2005 it has hung above the altar of the Divine Mercy Sanctuary in Vilnius. The version most people know was painted by Adolf Hyła during the Second World War. It hangs in the convent chapel at Kraków-Łagiewniki, above Faustina’s tomb.
Where the two rays come from
John 19:34
Instead, one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water flowed out.
John 19:34 · BSB
The disciple who stood at the cross saw this, and the next verse insists on it, “so that you also may believe.” Christians since the early centuries have read the blood and water as signs of the Eucharist and of baptism. The image of Divine Mercy paints that same wound as an open door: what flowed out on Good Friday is still flowing.
Five decades on ordinary rosary beads
How to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet
Faustina wrote down the chaplet in Vilnius in September 1935. You need nothing but a rosary and a few quiet minutes.
To begin, make the sign of the cross, then pray one Our Father, one Hail Mary and the Apostles’ Creed. Some add two short opening prayers from Faustina’s diary.On each large bead, pray the “Eternal Father” prayer, offering God the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of his Son, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.On each of the ten small beads, pray: “For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.”Repeat for all five decades. To close, pray three times: “Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us and on the whole world,” and end with the sign of the cross.The Hour of Mercy
Three o’clock and the novena
The Gospels place the death of Jesus at the ninth hour, about three in the afternoon, and Faustina wrote that she was asked to turn to his mercy at that hour each day. Many Catholics stop for a moment at three, or pray the chaplet then, as the shrines at Łagiewniki in Kraków and in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, do every day.
The feast also has its own novena: nine days of the chaplet, each for a different group of people, from all of humanity and especially sinners on the first day, through priests, the faithful and those who do not yet know God, to souls that have grown lukewarm on the ninth. It begins on Good Friday, so in 2027 it runs from Friday, March 26 to Saturday, April 3.
How it became a feast
From a chapel in Vilnius to the whole Church
Faustina wrote that Jesus wanted the image solemnly blessed on the first Sunday after Easter. In 1935 that Sunday fell on April 28, and the image was shown at Mass for the first time, at the Gate of Dawn in Vilnius. Father Sopoćko celebrated, and Faustina was in the congregation.
Sixty-five years later, on April 30, 2000, John Paul II canonized her in St Peter’s Square and said that the Second Sunday of Easter “from now on throughout the Church will be called ‘Divine Mercy Sunday.’” In 2002 he dedicated the new basilica at Łagiewniki in Kraków. He died on April 2, 2005, on the eve of the feast, and was later beatified on Divine Mercy Sunday in 2011 and canonized on it in 2014.
For everyone who came later
John 20:29
Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen Me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
John 20:29 · BSB
Thomas has carried the nickname “Doubting” for centuries, yet he makes the plainest confession in the Gospels: “My Lord and my God!” Then Jesus looks past him to us, the ones who have not seen. The five words under the image of Divine Mercy are this blessing put into practice: trust, offered without proof, on an ordinary weekday.
On your iPhone
Keep the feast in view
Divine Mercy Sunday is one of the 30 feasts in MySavior’s Christian Countdown. Because it follows Easter, its date changes every year, and the countdown works it out for you, so you know when Good Friday and the novena are coming without hunting for a calendar.
Faustina has her own day in the app too. On October 5, the Saint of the Day widget shows Saint Faustina Kowalska on your Home Screen or Lock Screen, with a short biography taken from Wikipedia. You can find her in the October saints calendar on this site as well.
Sunday, November 8
9:41
Count down to Divine Mercy Sunday on your Lock ScreenMySavior’s countdown follows the date of Easter for you, and its Saint of the Day widget puts Saint Faustina on your Home Screen on October 5.
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To say at three o’clock
A prayer for Divine Mercy Sunday
Lord Jesus, you came through locked doors and your first word was peace. Come through mine. Where I am afraid, give me trust. Where I have failed, give me your forgiveness, and make me quick to forgive. Have mercy on us and on the whole world. Jesus, I trust in you. Amen.
Say it after Mass on the feast, or at three in the afternoon on any day of the novena. On the days when that is too much, the last five words are enough.
A small practice for the feast
For the nine days from Good Friday to the eve of the feast, set an alarm for three in the afternoon. When it goes off, stop for one minute and say “Jesus, I trust in You.” If you can, go to confession during that week. Then, on Divine Mercy Sunday, think of one person you have not forgiven. Luke puts the whole feast in a single line: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” Do one small, concrete thing for that person before the week is out.
Keep the feasts of the year close
Bible verse and prayer widgets you design yourself, a countdown to the feasts of the year, and a saint for every day.
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Questions
When is Divine Mercy Sunday 2027?
Divine Mercy Sunday is Sunday, April 4, 2027, the Sunday after Easter (March 28, 2027). It moves with Easter every year; in 2028 it falls on April 23, 2028. The novena that prepares for it begins on Good Friday, March 26, 2027.
What is Divine Mercy Sunday?
It is the Second Sunday of Easter, the last day of the eight days of Easter. Since 2000 the Catholic Church has called it Divine Mercy Sunday: a feast of the mercy of God shown in the death and resurrection of Jesus, drawn from the devotion Saint Faustina Kowalska recorded in the 1930s.
How do you pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet?
On ordinary rosary beads. Begin with the sign of the cross, an Our Father, a Hail Mary and the Apostles’ Creed. On each large bead pray the “Eternal Father” prayer; on each of the ten small beads pray “For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.” After five decades, pray “Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us and on the whole world” three times.
Who was Saint Faustina?
Maria Faustina Kowalska (1905–1938) was a Polish nun of the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy. Her diary records the visions behind the Divine Mercy image, the chaplet and the feast. Pope John Paul II canonized her on April 30, 2000, and her feast day is October 5.
Is there a plenary indulgence on Divine Mercy Sunday?
Yes. In 2002 the Apostolic Penitentiary attached a plenary indulgence to the feast, with the usual conditions: sacramental confession, Holy Communion, prayer for the intentions of the Pope and detachment from all sin, together with prayers in honor of Divine Mercy in a church or chapel. Those who cannot get to church, such as the sick, have their own provisions; ask your parish.
