DEVOTIONS
Divine Mercy Message
The Message of Divine Mercy is that God is merciful. He is love itself poured out for us, and He wants no one to escape that merciful love.
The message is that God wants us to turn to Him with trust and repentance while it is still a time of mercy, before He comes as the just Judge. This turning with trust to Him who is Mercy itself is the only source of peace for mankind. Turning to and imploring God's mercy is the answer to the troubled world, there is no escaping that answer.
What God most wants of us is to turn to Him with trust. And the first act of trust is to receive His mercy. To trust God is to rely on Him who is Mercy itself. The Lord wants us to live with trust in Him in all circumstances. We trust Him because He is God, and He loves us and cares for us.
His mercy is always available to us, no matter what we have done or what state we are in, even if our sins are as black as night and we are filled with fears and anxieties.
"The greater the sinner, the greater the right he has to My mercy." (Diary, 723)
The A, B, C’s of Mercy
The Message of Mercy can be called to mind simply by remembering A-B-C
Ask for His Mercy. God wants us to approach Him in prayer constantly.
Be Merciful. God wants us to receive His mercy and let it flow through us to others.
Completely trust in Jesus. God wants us to know that the graces of His mercy are dependent on our trust.
By the time of Sr. Faustina’s death in 1938, devotion to The Divine Mercy had already begun to spread throughout Eastern Europe. In July of 1940, Fr. Joseph Jarzebowski, a Polish Marian priest fleeing from war-torn Poland, prayed to the Merciful Savior to help him escape, vowing to spend his life spreading the Divine Mercy message. He arrived safely on American soil in May 1941; and the Marians in Detroit, MI, and Washington, D.C., were soon distributing Mercy of God leaflets, prayer cards, and other materials.
In 1944, a group of Marians opened a new house and apostolate on Eden Hill in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. In 1953, the apostolate had become the international center for the Divine Mercy devotion, and in 1960 the Marians of Eden Hill completed construction of a shrine to the Mercy of God. The shrine has now become the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy, and the apostolate has become the Marian Helpers Center, a modern religious publishing house spreading devotion to the mercy of God and to Mary Immaculate.
“I desire that priests proclaim this great mercy of Mine towards the souls of sinners.
Let the sinner not be afraid to approach me.” (Diary, 50)
Jesus requested that the Sunday after Easter be officially established in the Church as the Feast of Mercy:
“On that day the very depths of My tender mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls
who approach the fount of My mercy.” (Diary, 699)