CHRIST'S EASTER GIFTS TO US ARE HIS PEACE AND MERCY

VATICAN CITY, APR 27, 2003 (VIS) - Today, Divine Mercy Sunday, at the end of the Mass celebrated in St. Peter's Square, during which he beatified six Servants of God, the Holy Father greeted the pilgrims who had come for the beatifications, following which everyone prayed the Regina Coeli, the prayer that substitutes the Angelus during the Easter Season.

The Pope welcomed "the priests, religious and faithful who animate the Divine Mercy Spirituality Center, active for the last ten years here in Rome in the church of the Holy Spirit in Sassia."

"The Risen Jesus," stated John Paul II, "encounters the disciples in the Cenacle and to them he offers the Easter gift of peace and mercy. How well we understand, meditating on today's pages from Scripture, that true peace comes from a heart that is reconciled, that has felt the joy of pardon and is therefore ready to pardon. The Church, gathered today spiritually in prayer in the Cenacle, presents her Lord with the joys and hopes, the pains and anguish of the entire world. And it also offers, as an efficacious remedy, 'divine mercy', asking her ministers to become its generous and faithful servants."

He concluded by entrusting to Mary in a special way the Churches of the East that today celebrate the Easter of the Resurrection.

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