DIVINE MERCY NOW!

Our Lord Jesus Christ appeared to a Polish nun, who has been canonized — Saint Faustina, who died in A.D. 1938.  He appeared to her many times and gave her many messages, which she wrote down. She had only had a third-grade education, but, when her handwritten notebook was typed up, in small print, translated into English, it was 644 pages long: Diary of Divine Mercy in My Soul.  I would not be at all surprised to see her proclaimed a Doctor of The Church, as St. Teresa of Avila was.

In any case, the incredible messages, which our Lord gave to St. Faustina concerned His Divine Mercy, of which we stand in grave need.  There are 4 components to this wonderful Message:  The Feast of Divine Mercy, The Chaplet of Divine Mercy, The Hour of Great Mercy, and The Image of Divine Mercy.

The Feast of or Divine Mercy Sunday: the Sunday after Easter.  This is a day on which to jumpstart your life.  Our Lord requested that we get to Holy Confession and Holy Communion on that day, and He would take away not only our sins but also the temporal punishment due those sins.  Blessed Pope John Paul II, when he canonized St. Faustina and changed “Low Sunday” to the Feast of Divine Mercy, said that the Confession could be made 7 days before The Feast or 7 days after the Feast of Divine Mercy, to gain the wonderful graces.  But, one has to be in a state of grace to receive Jesus-Looking-Like-Bread in The Most Holy Eucharist, on Divine Mercy Sunday.  You might have to call your Bishop’s Chancery to find out which churches will actually have Confessions on Divine Mercy Sunday, although Pope John Paul II asked that the Priests be liberal in hearing Confessions on that Feast.  Jesus requested that we make a NOVENA of CHAPLETS of DIVINE MERCY, which would begin on Good Friday and continue through Divine Mercy Sunday.  I jumpstart my life every year on Divine Mercy Sunday.  (Since there is so much misinformation being spread, even by those, who should know better, about how to gain the incredible graces of Divine Mercy — all of your sins AND temporal punishment being taken away — see below the Pope’s actual words concerning what to do for Divine Mercy Sunday.)

The Chaplet of Divine Mercy: St. Faustina was given a Chaplet, which is prayed on Rosary beads, without praying The Most Holy Rosary.  Begin it with a Sign of The Cross; pray an “Our Father”, a “Hail, Mary”, then, the Apostles’ Creed.  Then, on each “Our Father” bead, pray this prayer: “O Eternal Father, I offer Thee The Body and Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Thy Dearly Beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.”  Then, on each “Hail, Mary” bead, 10 for each of the five decades, pray: “For The Sake of His Sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.”  After having prayed the above for five decades, end the Chaplet by praying three times: “Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us and on the whole world.” Lastly, make The Sign of The Cross again.  The Lord requested that we pray this Chaplet each day for nine days, beginning on Good Friday, each year, but we should pray it every day for our own intentions, as our Lord promised that He would grant anything we ask through this, if it be His Own Will.  He also asked that The Chaplet be prayed in the presence of the dying — it does not have to be prayed aloud — because He will stand between the dying person’s soul and The Father’s Wrath, so that the person will not go to hell.  It helps to pray the Chaplet and meditate on The Way of The Cross, during The Hour of Great Mercy: 3:00 p.m., when Jesus died on The Cross.

The Hour of Great Mercy: Jesus asked that at 3:00 p.m., we do one or more of the following in order of importance: 1. Make The Stations of The Cross at a church or chapel; 2. Visit our Lord in The Blessed Sacrament; 3. immerse ourselves in His Passion (Suffering) if only for a moment, wherever we are. He said that when we do this, we can ask Him for anything “In Virtue of His Passion”, and He will grant it if it be His Own Will.

The Image of Divine Mercy: Our Lord asked that an Image be painted (this was done in Poland and continues to be done by various artists) and that this Image be propagated throughout the world and that it be “solemnly blessed” and venerated in church on Divine Mercy Sunday.  The Image is a picture of The Risen Lord, with His Right Hand raised in a blessing, while the left hand is pointing to His Most Sacred Heart.  From His Most Sacred Heart, there are two large Rays beaming out: the red one stands for our Lord’s Most Sacred Blood, and the white one stands for our Lord’s Most Sacred Water, both of which flowed out from His Most Sacred Heart after it had been pierced with a lance by (St.) Longinus.  His Most Precious Blood represents “the life of Souls”, and His Sacred Water“makes Souls righteous”.  At the bottom of The Image are the words: “Jesus, I trust in Thee”, which is also a very powerful prayer.

APOSTOLIC PENITENTIARY   DECREE

“Indul­gences attached to devo­tions in hon­our of Divine Mercy”

“O God, Thy Mer­cy knows no bounds and the trea­sure of Thy Good­ness is infi­nite…” (Prayer after the “Te Deum” Hymn) and “O God, Thou revealest Thine  Almighty Pow­er above all by show­ing Mer­cy and For­give­ness…” (Prayer for the 26th Sun­day of Ordi­nary Time), in these prayers Holy Moth­er Church humbly and faith­ful­ly sings of Divine Mer­cy.  Indeed, God’s great patience with the human race in gen­er­al and with each indi­vid­ual per­son shines out in a spe­cial way when sins and moral fail­ures are for­giv­en by Almighty God, Him­self, and the guilty are read­mit­ted in a father­like way to His Friend­ship, which they deserved­ly lost.

Duty of hon­our­ing Divine Mercy

The faith­ful with deep spir­i­tu­al affec­tion are drawn to com­mem­o­rate The Mys­ter­ies of Divine Par­don and to cel­e­brate them devout­ly.  They clear­ly under­stand the supreme ben­e­fit, indeed the duty, that the Peo­ple of God have to praise Divine Mer­cy with spe­cial prayers and, at the same time, they real­ize that by grate­ful­ly per­form­ing the works required and sat­is­fy­ing the nec­es­sary con­di­tions, they can obtain spir­i­tu­al ben­e­fits that derive from the Trea­sury of The Church.  “The Paschal Mys­tery is the cul­mi­na­tion of this reveal­ing and effect­ing of Mer­cy, which is able to jus­ti­fy man, to restore jus­tice in the sense of that salvif­ic order, which God willed from the begin­ning in man, and through man, in the world” (Encycli­cal Let­ter Dives in Mis­eri­cor­dia, n. 7).

It is God’s Mer­cy, that grants super­nat­ur­al sor­row and res­o­lu­tion to amend

Indeed, Divine Mer­cy knows how to par­don even the most seri­ous sins, and in doing so it moves the faith­ful to per­ceive a super­nat­ur­al, not mere­ly psy­cho­log­i­cal, sor­row for their sins so that, ever with the help of divine grace, they may make a firm res­o­lu­tion not to sin any more.  Such spir­i­tu­al dis­po­si­tions unde­ni­ably fol­low upon the for­give­ness of mor­tal sin when the faith­ful fruit­ful­ly receive the sacra­ment of Penance or repent of their sin with an act of per­fect char­i­ty and per­fect con­tri­tion, with the res­o­lu­tion to receive the Sacra­ment of Penance as soon as they can.  Indeed, Our Lord Jesus Christ teach­es us in the para­ble of the Prodi­gal Son, that the sin­ner must con­fess his mis­ery to God say­ing:  “Father I have sinned against Heav­en and against you; I am no longer wor­thy to be called your son” (Lk 15,18–19), real­iz­ing that this is a work of God, “for [he] was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found” (Lk 15,32).

Sec­ond Sun­day of East­er, Divine Mer­cy Sunday

And so with prov­i­dent pas­toral sen­si­tiv­i­ty and in order to impress deeply on the souls of the faith­ful these pre­cepts and teach­ings of The Chris­t­ian Faith, the Supreme Pon­tiff, John Paul II, moved by The Con­sid­er­a­tion of The Father of Mer­cy, has willed that the Sec­ond Sun­day of East­er be ded­i­cat­ed to recall­ing, with spe­cial devo­tion, these gifts of grace, and gave this Sun­day the name, “Divine Mer­cy Sun­day” (Con­gre­ga­tion for Divine Wor­ship and the Dis­ci­pline of the Sacra­ments, Decree Mis­eri­cors et Mis­er­a­tor, 5 May 2000).

The Gospel of the Sec­ond Sun­day of East­er nar­rates the won­der­ful things Christ The Lord accom­plished on the day of The Res­ur­rec­tion dur­ing His first pub­lic appear­ance: “On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the dis­ci­ples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you’.  When He said this, He showed them His Hands and His Side. Then the dis­c­ples were glad to see The Lord.  Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.  As The Father has sent Me, even so I send you’.  And then He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive The Holy Spir­it.  If you for­give the sins of any, they are for­giv­en; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’ ” (Jn 20,19–23).

Ple­nary Indulgence

To ensure that the faith­ful would observe this day with intense devo­tion, the Supreme Pon­tiff, him­self, estab­lished that this Sun­day be enriched by a ple­nary indul­gence, as will be explained below, so that the faith­ful might receive in great abun­dance the gift of the con­so­la­tion of The Holy Spir­it. In this way, they can fos­ter a grow­ing love for God and for their neigh­bour, and after they have obtained God’s par­don, they in turn might be per­suad­ed to show a prompt par­don to their broth­ers and sisters.

Par­don of oth­ers who sin against us

Thus the faith­ful will more close­ly con­form to the spir­it of the Gospel, receiv­ing in their hearts the renew­al that the Sec­ond Vat­i­can Coun­cil explained and intro­duced:  “Mind­ful of the words of The Lord:  “By this all men will know that you are My dis­ci­ples, if you have love for one anoth­er’ (Jn 13,35), Chris­tians can yearn for noth­ing more ardent­ly than to serve the men of this age with an ever grow­ing gen­eros­i­ty and suc­cess.… It is The Father’s will that we should rec­og­nize Christ, our Broth­er, in the per­sons of all men and love them with an effec­tive love, in word and in deed (Pas­toral Con­sti­tu­tion, Gaudi­um et spes, n. 93).

Three con­di­tions for the ple­nary indul­gence:

And so the Supreme Pon­tiff, moti­vat­ed by an ardent desire to fos­ter in Chris­tians this devo­tion to Divine Mer­cy as much as pos­si­ble in the hope of offer­ing great spir­i­tu­al fruit to the faith­ful, in the Audi­ence grant­ed on 13 June 2002, to those Respon­si­ble for the Apos­tolic Pen­i­ten­tiary, grant­ed the fol­low­ing Indulgences:

A Ple­nary indul­gence, grant­ed under the usu­al con­di­tions (sacra­men­tal con­fes­sion, Eucharis­tic com­mu­nion and prayer for the inten­tions of Supreme Pon­tiff) to the faith­ful who, on the Sec­ond Sun­day of East­er or Divine Mer­cy Sun­day, in any church or chapel, in a spir­it that is com­plete­ly detached from the affec­tion for a sin, even a venial sin, take part in the prayers and devo­tions held in hon­our of Divine Mer­cy, or who, in the pres­ence of the Blessed Sacra­ment exposed or reserved in the taber­na­cle, recite the Our Father and the Creed, adding a devout prayer to the mer­ci­ful Lord Jesus (e.g. Mer­ci­ful Jesus, I trust in you!”);

A par­tial indul­gence, grant­ed to the faith­ful who, at least with a con­trite heart, pray to the mer­ci­ful Lord Jesus a legit­i­mate­ly approved invocation.

For those who can­not go to church or the seri­ous­ly ill

In addi­tion, sailors work­ing on the vast expanse of the sea; the count­less broth­ers and sis­ters, whom the dis­as­ters of war, polit­i­cal events, local vio­lence and oth­er such caus­es have been dri­ven out of their home­land; the sick and those who nurse them, and all who for a just cause can­not leave their homes or who car­ry out an activ­i­ty for the com­mu­ni­ty which can­not be post­poned, may obtain a ple­nary indul­gence on Divine Mer­cy Sun­day, if total­ly detest­ing any sin, as has been said before, and with the inten­tion of ful­fill­ing as soon as pos­si­ble the three usu­al con­di­tions, will recite the Our Father and the Creed before a devout image of Our Mer­ci­ful Lord Jesus and, in addi­tion, pray a devout invo­ca­tion to the Mer­ci­ful Lord Jesus (e.g. Mer­ci­ful Jesus, I trust in you).

If it is impos­si­ble that peo­ple do even this, on the same day they may obtain the Ple­nary Indul­gence if with a spir­i­tu­al inten­tion they are unit­ed with those car­ry­ing out the pre­scribed prac­tice for obtain­ing the Indul­gence in the usu­al way and offer to the Mer­ci­ful Lord a prayer and the suf­fer­ings of their ill­ness and the dif­fi­cul­ties of their lives, with the res­o­lu­tion to accom­plish as soon as pos­si­ble the three con­di­tions pre­scribed to obtain the ple­nary indulgence.

The Duty of priests:  inform parish­ioners, hear con­fes­sions, lead prayers:

Priests who exer­cise pas­toral min­istry, espe­cial­ly parish priests, should inform the faith­ful in the most suit­able way of the Church’s salu­tary pro­vi­sion. They should prompt­ly and gen­er­ous­ly be will­ing to hear their con­fes­sions.  On Divine Mer­cy Sun­day, after cel­e­brat­ing Mass or Ves­pers, or dur­ing devo­tions in hon­our of Divine Mer­cy, with the dig­ni­ty that is in accord with the rite, they should lead the recita­tion of the prayers that have been giv­en above.  Final­ly, since “Blessed are the mer­ci­ful, for they shall obtain mer­cy” (Mt 5,7), when they instruct their peo­ple, priests should gen­tly encour­age the faith­ful to prac­tise works of char­i­ty or mer­cy as often as they can, fol­low­ing the exam­ple of, and in obey­ing the com­mand­ment of Jesus Christ, as is list­ed for the sec­ond gen­er­al con­ces­sion of indul­gence in the “Enchirid­ion Indul­gen­tiarum”.

This Decree has per­pet­u­al force, any pro­vi­sion to the con­trary notwithstanding.

Arch­bish­op Lui­gi De Magistris,
Tit. Arch­bish­op of Nova
Major Pro-Penitentiary

Fr Gian­fran­co Girot­ti, O.F.M. Conv.,
Regent

 

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