The Divine Mercy Message and Devotion
The message of The Divine Mercy is simple. It is that God loves us all of us. And, he wants us to recognize that His mercy is greater than our sins, so that we will call upon Him with trust, receive His mercy, and let it flow through us to others. Thus, all will come to share His joy.
The message of The Divine Mercy is simple. It is that God loves us all of us. And, he wants us to recognize that His mercy is greater than our sins, so that we will call upon Him with trust, receive His mercy, and let it flow through us to others. Thus, all will come to share His joy.
The Divine Mercy message is one we can call to mind simply by remembering ABC:
A – Ask for His Mercy. God wants us to approach Him in prayer constantly, repenting of our sins and asking Him to pour His mercy out upon us and upon the whole world.
B – Be merciful. God wants us to receive His mercy and let it flow through us to others. He wants us to extend love and forgiveness to others just as He does to us.
C – Completely trust in Jesus. God wants us to know that the graces of His mercy are dependent upon our trust. The more we trust in Jesus, the more we will receive.
This message and devotion to Jesus as The Divine Mercy is based on the writings of Saint Faustina Kowalska, an uneducated Polish nun who, in obedience to her spiritual director, wrote a diary of about 600 pages recording the revelations she received about God’s mercy. Even before her death in 1938, the devotion to The Divine Mercy had begun to spread.
The message and devotional practices proposed in the Diary of Saint Faustina are completely in accordance with the teachings of Church and are firmly rooted in the Gospel message of our Merciful Savior. Properly understood and implemented, they will help us grow as genuine followers of Christ.
Spend time to learn more about the mercy of God, learn to trust in Jesus, and live your life as merciful to others, as Christ is merciful to you.
Servant of God Fr. Dolindo Ruotolo (1882-1970) was a Franciscan priest who was born and lived in Naples, Italy. Ordained at the young age of 23, Fr. Dolindo dedicated every moment of his long life to prayer and penance at the service of thousands of faithful who asked for his spiritual direction and turned to him for help and comfort. He offered himself as a victim soul for mankind, and was richly blessed by God, to include prophecies, miracles and conversations with Jesus. In fact, his contemporary Franciscan, St. Pio of Pietrelcina, once said to a group of pilgrims from Naples: “Why do you come here, if you have Don Dolindo in Naples? Go to him, he’s a saint!” St. Pio also once told Fr. Dolindo that the “whole of paradise is in your soul.”
Fr. Dolindo is perhaps best known today for the Surrender Novena based on words that Jesus gave him, and the Rosary of Abandonment. As Jesus once said to him: “Why do you confuse yourselves by worrying? Leave the care of your affairs to Me and everything will be peaceful. I say to you in truth that every act of true, blind, complete surrender to Me produces the effect that you desire and resolves all difficult situations.”