The devotion of Divine Mercy is life changing. To know it is to love it and be transformed.
It comes to us from Jesus in his messages to Sister Faustina Kowalska who was canonized in 2000 by Pope John Paul II. He also proclaimed the Sunday after Easter to be celebrated annually as Divine Mercy Sunday. Leading up to it is the powerful The Divine Mercy Novena that begins on Good Friday with each day focusing on a specific intention revealed to Saint Faustina Kowalska by Jesus.
The Divine Mercy Novena, prayed as a preparation for the Feast of the Divine Mercy, promises that Jesus will grant every possible grace to souls who pray it, especially at the hour of death, and that those who trust in His mercy will be embraced by it.
Another powerful daily practice is to pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy which Jesus gave to St. Faustina for the whole world. He attached extraordinary promises to its recitation.
“Encourage souls to say the Chaplet which I have given you (1541). Whoever will recite it will receive great mercy at the hour of death (687). When they say this Chaplet in the presence of the dying, I will stand between My Father and the dying person, not as the just Judge but as the Merciful Savior (1541). Priests will recommend it to sinners as their last hope of salvation. Even if there were a sinner most hardened, if he were to recite this Chaplet only once, he would receive grace from My infinite mercy (687). I desire to grant unimaginable graces to those souls who trust in My mercy (687). Through the Chaplet you will obtain everything, if what you ask for is compatible with My will. (1731)”
Vinny Flynn was one of the original editors of the official English edition of the actual Diary of Saint Maria Faustina and later wrote the book, 7 Secrets of Divine Mercy.
He shows that the Divine Mercy devotion is key to every other Catholic devotion and how it can make our lives more meaningful once we embrace the gift of Divine Mercy ― the overflow of love from the Holy Trinity. Here is a summary of the 7 secrets he identified.
Secret #1 God has a plan.
God’s plan of loving kindness involves us becoming conformed to the image of his Son. The plan is that one day, God the Father wants to introduces us to the Trinity and created us to be transformed to the image of the Son.
Secret #2 Holiness is not an option. “Good Enough is Not Good Enough.”
Flynn noted that Saint Pope John Paul II stated God’s will for us is to desire holiness. “This is the will of God, your holiness,” he said. “Be sure of this, no immoral or impure or greedy person has any inheritance in the Kingdom of God.”
Holiness, therefore, is not an option, but a requirement because nothing impure can enter into the presence of God.
#3 Divine Life is a different way of living and now is when we need to learn how to do it.
St. Faustina said that eternal life begins now. Sin disfigures us. We need to be restored in the image and likeness of God. God does it through the sacraments— restoring us so that we resemble him.
Secret #4 God Loves Backwards
Most of us feel loved based on our behavior—always reacting to what people have done, not unconditional.
Compared to that, God loves backwards. Who has the greatest right to God’s love are those who need it most. Jesus told St. Faustina that “the greater the sinner, the greater the right he has to My mercy.” This means that those who feel the weight of their sins and are desperate for forgiveness are particularly welcome to seek God’s mercy. The key is to seek God’s mercy, even in the face of great sin and despair.
Secret #5 Prodigal doesn’t mean bad. The prodigal son was rebellious. Prodigal means to squander—he wasted his inheritance. Someone else who is prodigal is God. He squanders his mercy. God doesn’t give us his mercy because we deserve it, he gives it to us because that’s who he is. Mercy is undeserved love—an ocean of grace.
Trust draws the grace of God; the more we trust the more we receive.
We draw his mercy and love by trust. When his blood and water poured out—it included everyone
#6 Pray for now and then.
God is not limited to time and space. He knows everything at once.
Every one moment we are in adoration, we made Jesus’s agony more bearable, Just as our sin inflicted more suffering—what he did then affects us now. What Christ did then is with us now through Holy Communion, Confession and Mass—accessing the grace now. It has been available since his heart was pierced by a lance and opened up.
#7 All about the Eucharist. Eternal Father, I offer you the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.
Christ is forever before the Father interceding for us.
Bread is the veil. If we can lift back the veil, we would see Jesus radiating mercy and interceding for us to the Father. The goal is transfiguration.
The Divine Mercy message all about transfiguration. We don’t deserve it, but it’s free and can transform us so that we can be vessels and instruments of God transfiguring the entire world.
Learn more about Divine Mercy here.
