Today, my dad would have been fifty-nine years old. The day after we celebrated the Divine Mercy of God through Jesus Christ my youngest daughter chose a special birthday balloon to place at the grave marker of her “Poppie” who died just fifteen days before she was born. Love is indescribable, but love is tangible. It’s so real. Just like mercy is real.

This week’s carnival is a small but widely varied collection of posts from around the Catholic Blogosphere: I’m going to give cohesion my best shot.

Divine Mercy and The Apostles posted at Catholic Matriarch in my Domestic Church aka Catholic Mom gives an excellent reflection on how Christ’s Divine Mercy was an understanding that dates back to the Apostles, even though the devotion was only recently popularized. This is a particularly good challenge for those of us (hold on while I strike at my breast) that want all the mercy to ourselves. It’s the “…and the whole world” that is so hard for the most faithful to embrace.

Speaking of that, have mercy on us, and on the whole world echoes that love and mercy, especially for our children from the field of blue children.

Kevin at Heart, Mind, and Soul Blog reflects on the readings of Divine Mercy Sunday and points out important connections to Church teachings in The Resurrection, God’s Mercy, and the Christian Life.

It amazes me that on a day when my parents are so heavily on my mind, I’m forwarded so many great parent-related articles. Besides Cathy’s above, Catholic Fire has a terrific account of a saved life in Baby Saved at Tiller’s Late-term Abortion Mill, Heidi Saxton presents a Prayer for Couples Who Want to Adopt at Mommy Monsters Inc., my good friend Sean shares an audio plus pictorial narrative of a pilgrimage that he and his daughter converged with on Easter Sunday in More Ps– Pictures and a Podcast of Portageurs on Pilgrimage on A Catholic Canadian, K T Cat presents a good lesson to teach our sons On MySpace and Sexual Competition posted at The Scratching Post, and Matthew S presents a humorous plea to St. Raffle, pray for us!?! posted at Play the Dad? No, be the Dad!

Kelly presents an excellent scriptural defense of Succession and Tradition posted at Visits to Candyland. It’s particularly interesting to me that we get our second mention of Matthias this week and that he plays a fundamentally important role!

While we’ve got scripture on the brain (shouldn’t we always?), read through Easter Sunday Musings About The Rich Man, The Camel, And The Needle posted at Money Blue Book.

What would Mother Theresa do? Have the bracelets been made yet? Sarah read Mother Teresa’s new book, Come Be My Light, for Lent, and here she shares a few thoughts about it in Light Through Darkness over on just another day of Catholic pondering.

Finally, Lyn Francisco shares something we could all use! A Blogger’s Prayer (which marks the first time I’ve ever seen the initials “RSS” in a prayer – but how cool is that? I’m such a geek.) is posted over on Organ-ic Chemist.

I’ll probably never stop writing tributes to my dad because he was such a rock of faith and he pointed me toward Christ at every opportunity. I still learn from him, because I recall memories and now that I’m a dad, I understand why he handled things the way he did. I’ll leave you with a song that I wrote for dad, because of one of the most important lessons he ever taught me. Happy birthday, dad. I love you.

Update: All apologies to Red Neck woman from Postscripts from the Catholic Spitfire Grill. Through a blunder of my own, I left out her post on Why Catholics Don’t Discuss Their Faith With “You”