My dear 88 year old Mother often likens “THE DIVINE MERCY” as a LOOKING INTO THE EYES OF GOD. Whenever something wonderful or miraculous happens in her life, she immediately grabs pen n paper, or telephone, to tell me, “God’s doing it again, winking at me!!!”
My precious friend, Olga Mihanowich, old enough to call my mother “a kid,” called me today to share a beautiful tale of Divine Mercy. It had to do with Cardinal Timothy Dolan, in whose eyes Olga has seen God’s Great Big Heart.
i told her that i just had to share it here.
Actually it is about Olga’s friends, Matt and Nancy Condon of Beacon, New York. They were booked on a flight Friday night from New York City to Rome. They were among a large group, under the lead of Cardinal Dolan, to celebrate Easter and Divine Mercy with our Pope. There was, however, a problem. After all of the months of planning they had not anticipated an airplane with mechanical issues. After hours of praying with mechanics-at-work, the whole delegation was told they’d have to wait another day for another plane. Everyone was shuffling about, making arrangements, but Matt and Nancy were too late. It appeared that they would have to just curl up in one of JFK’s cozy airport lounges…until the Big Man, headed back to St. Patrick’s, asked about them. He would hear nothing of their staying anywhere but in his home. They must’ve felt that a bright Angel was before them, 
but angels don’t usually wake you up the next morning with a big breakfast. Men do, men who have stared into the eyes, and deeply through to the HEART, of God. 
Pope Francis has probably considered among his most important work these past three years the countless appeals – should we call it begging – to his fellow bishops and priests, that they fall passionately in love with God, that is, MADLY IN LOVE WITH LOVE HIMSELF! A LOVE THAT EXPLODES IN JOY! No doubt, whatever has been Matt and Nancy Condon’s experience in Italy throughout this week, whatever Olga will be hearing and seeing in photos this weekend, it probably will not compare to Day One, the failed day, the flopped plan, when they came face-to-face with Mercy Divine in human form. They had planned a trip of 4300 miles to celebrate Divine Mercy, but they had already felt and tasted it in the generosity of their own good shepherd.
TIMMY, YOU DID YOUR PAPA PROUD!!! (Not to mention your dear Mama!)
i have stared myself into the eyes of the Cardinal (though, like Olga, i strained my neck to do so). But, even more importantly for me was the night that my children and i were watching all of the Cardinals assembled in the awesome Sistine Chapel, where they were praying and discussing which one they should elect the New Pope. History in the Making, i remember feeling so darned proud, as the first 100 or so marched in with such stern faces. Sure, it was understandable with the magnitude of their decision at hand! But then came our own Timothy Dolan!!! i say so with no disrespect, but rather because – and my kids were so thrilled about it – our Big Man walked in like a little boy, into that room where i myself have been many times as a witness to its MAGNITUDE! He was the only one with that most appropriate expression of utter awe, his eyes popping out like a tourist’s in his Manhattan. His Spirit Uncontainable! Pope Francis has said it til he’s blue-in-the-face, that this is the kind of soul we need to shoot New Life into the Church and into a growingly hopeless world. A CHILD’S AWE AT THE ULTIMATE MYSTERY OF GOD’S LOVE!
MercySoup.com 