The World's Best Evangelization Tool -- Divine Mercy Sunday

With so many (so-called) Catholics away from the practice of their faith, there is a great need for evangelization.  Not only are we all called to actively evangelize all peoples, we are called to bring home our lost and alienated brethren.  

Our Lord has given us a great gift called Divine Mercy Sunday that if used properly, can restore our Church to overflowing.

Jesus gave us many parables that would set the standard for us to follow.  He told us how the Good Shepherd rejoiced at finding His lost sheep.  How so many more lost sheep need to be found today.  Not only does He rejoice today when the sheep are found, but He is very much saddened when even just one is lost.

In His revelations to Saint Faustina, which He gave for the world, Jesus remarked that “The loss of each soul plunges Me into mortal sadness” and that “The flames of mercy are burning Me, clamoring to be spent” (from the diary, entry #1397, 50).  If we love Jesus, then we must do everything that we can, to find His lost sheep.

Our Lord has given us a very simple way to bring our lost sheep back home.  It is called the “Feast of Mercy” or “Divine Mercy Sunday”.  This great feast, which the Church has been celebrating universally since Pope John Paul II canonized St. Faustina, in the year 2000, has everything in it that we need to restore our Church.

Jesus requested that a Feast of Mercy be established in the Church on the Sunday after Easter and He has made a great promise to any soul that would turn to Him by going to Confession and then receiving Holy Communion on that feast-day.

He said “Whoever approaches the fountain of life on this day will be granted the complete forgiveness of sins and punishment” (Diary, 300).  Jesus is attempting to get souls to receive Holy Communion in a perfect state of grace, without sin.

It is quite clear that Jesus wants this particular Sunday to be set apart.  Our Lord said “I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and a shelter for all souls, and especially for poor sinners.  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.  

The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion will obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment.  On that day are opened all the divine floodgates through which graces flow.  Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its sins be as scarlet”. (Diary, 699)

That’s not all.  Jesus said “I want to pour out My divine life into human souls and to sanctify them, if only they were willing to accept My grace. The greatest sinners would achieve great sanctity, if only they would trust in My mercy”. (Diary, 1784)

Trust is a key word for Divine Mercy.  Our Lord in His great wisdom knew that in these times, the words “Jesus, I trust in You” would have a profound meaning for those who might need some motivation to come to Him and to ask for His mercy.

Our Lord’s placement of the feast on the Sunday after Easter gives pastors the perfect opportunity to address the greatest crowds that attend on Easter Sunday.  

He knows that many people are looking for a good reason to start coming back to church.  What better reason than to be able to start over again with a great promise for the total forgiveness of sins and punishment?  Who wouldn’t benefit from that?

Topping that off is the fact that Jesus said that “The greatest sinners would achieve great sanctity”.  What could be more beneficial?  Souls achieving great sanctity for just going to Confession and then receiving Holy Communion on Mercy Sunday?  What could be easier?  People just need to be seriously urged to go to Confession!

One of the requirements of Catholics is the confession of their sins at least once a year.  Studies have shown that most people are in great need of fulfilling this most important precept of the Church.  Our Lord said “I desire that priests proclaim this great mercy of Mine towards souls of sinners”. (Diary, 50)  What greater reason could there ever be, than Jesus’ promise, to urge everyone into Reconciliation?

The Vatican has also added a Plenary Indulgence to this feast, which is to remain perpetually in place.  The beauty of this indulgence is the increased amount of time that is gives to priests to hear confessions.  It is allowed for one to go to Confession up to about 20 days, before or after, Divine Mercy Sunday.

It’s so simple.  Just  remind everyone on Easter, that the following Sunday is a very special feast called Divine Mercy Sunday where they can receive the total forgiveness of their sins and punishment.  Sinners will be filled with grace, as Jesus promised, and then they will radiate that love and mercy to others that will cause a ripple effect throughout the Church!  

What a great gift Jesus has given us!   

The 40 Hours Devotion

The Forty Hours Devotion provides a wonderful opportunity for the spiritual growth of each person and the parish as a whole. In a world where temptation and evil abound, where devotion to the Mass and our Lord in the Holy Eucharist have declined, where the practice of penance and confession have been forgotten, we need the Forty Hours Devotion more than ever.

---

What is Forty Hours Devotion?

The Forty Hours Devotion is a special 40-hour period of continuous prayer made before the Blessed Sacrament in solemn exposition. Of course, the focus of this devotion is on the Holy Eucharist. The Forty Hours Devotion can be seen almost like a parish mini-retreat or mission in which the faithful are invited to come spend time with the Lord.

Why the number 40?

The number forty has always signified a sacred period of time: the rains during the time of Noah lasted 40 days and nights; the Jews wandered through the desert for 40 years, our Lord fasted and prayed for 40 days before beginning His public ministry. The 40 Hours Devotion remembers that traditional “forty-hour period” from our Lord’s burial until the resurrection. Actually in the Middle Ages, the Blessed Sacrament was transferred to the repository, “the Easter Sepulcher,” for this period of time to signify our Lord’s time in the tomb.

What does Forty Hours Devotion entail?

The Forty Hours Devotion begins with a Solemn Mass of Exposition, which concludes with the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. The Blessed Sacrament remains on the altar in a monstrance. During the next 40 hours, the faithful gather for personal or public prayer in adoration of our Lord. There will be various prayer services and devotions offered during our celebration, but most often we will offer periods of prayerful silence. We will mark the conclusion of 40 Hours with a prayer service and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

During 40 Hours, for what should I pray and what kind of spiritual graces can I receive?

While the Forty Hours Devotion nurtures the love of the faithful for our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, three special dimensions have also surrounded this devotion: the protection from evil and temptation; reparation for our own sins and for the Poor Souls in Purgatory; and deliverance from political, material, or spiritual calamities. Here the faithful implore our Lord to pour forth His abundant graces not only for themselves, but their neighbors, not only for their own personal needs, but for those of the world. Many great saints such as St. Charles Borromeo, St. Philip Neri, St. Ignatius Loyola, and, in our own country, St. John Neumann were all strong promoters of the Forty Hours Devotion.

A Deeper Understanding Of The Holy Sacrifice Of The Mass

St. Faustina’s Vision of the Sacred Host during Mass
Low Sunday – 28th April, 1935

In the Diary of St. Faustina, she records various visions she had of Our Lord in the Sacred Host. Of one vision, she writes, “Toward the end of the service, when the priest took the Blessed Sacrament to bless the people, I saw the Lord Jesus as He is represented in the Image. The Lord gave His blessing, and the rays extended over the whole world” (Diary 420). What St. Faustina saw in vision happens each time we attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. What she saw in a vision, we believe in by faith.

The Priest raises the Sacred Host three times during every Mass:

During the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the priest raises the Sacred Host three times. When we are aware of these three elevations, we come to appreciate the Holy Mass ever more deeply. The first elevation of the Sacred Host is immediately after the Consecration, secondly at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer when the priest sings “Through Him, and with Him and in Him” and finally the priest holds the Sacred Host before the congregation saying, “Behold the Lamb of God”, which is then presented to each of those receiving Holy Communion personally. Each of these actions teaches us the various aspects of the Holy Mass.

When I am lifted up, I will draw all men to myself:

Jesus told His disciples, “When I am lifted up, I will draw all men to myself” (John 12:32). During the Mass, this “lifting up” of Christ is made truly present to us. Each “lifting up” calls us to relive the meaning of the Mass. Each Mass is the sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary, the real presence of the living Christ, now in glory in Heaven, and the preparation for the great feast in the banquet of God’s glory in Heaven. In one of his prayers in honour of the Blessed Sacrament, St. Thomas Aquinas speaks of these aspects of the Holy Mass and the Blessed Eucharist, “O sacred banquet in which Christ is received, the memory of His passion is renewed, our minds are filled with His grace and we receive a pledge of the glory that is to be ours”.

The First Elevation of the Host:

The first elevation after the consecration reminds us that the Mass is the re-presentation of the Holy Sacrifice of the Cross on Calvary now in unbloodied form. Christ on the Cross is lifted up and offers Himself in expiation for all the sins of the world. He is lifted up before the whole of creation as the sacrifice which takes all sins away. His perfect giving of himself to the Father, on our behalf, cancels all the sins of our failure to be open to God and turning away from Him in our human pride. When the priest lifts up the Sacred Host, we are there present, in the moment of the perfect sacrifice of Christ, as love overcomes evil and mercy flows freely over the whole world. At the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the moment of mercy is present for us in our own time and in the midst of our daily struggles.

Christ, in His sacred humanity, offers Himself to the Heavenly Father for us and as the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, Christ offers us in Himself the eternal love of the Father. He is truly ‘lifted up’ so that we can see Christ, the one true mediator between God and man. Before this great mystery of love, we kneel and bow in adoration.

The Second Elevation of the Host:

Secondly, at the end of the Eucharistic prayer, again the priest lifts up the Sacred Host, higher now than after the consecration. For now we are remembering at the Holy Mass is made present not simply the sacrifice of Calvary but also the joy of the Resurrection and Ascension. It is the living Lord Jesus that is present in the Sacred Species. Christ is now in glory and He has, because of his obedience on Calvary, become the Lord of all time and the universe. He is truly Our Lord and God. It is through Him and with Him and in Him that all fitting glory is offered to God the Father. By our response of the “Great Amen” (this is what the Church calls it), we claim Jesus as Lord of our lives and we hand ourselves over completely to Him. So we should shout out that “Great Amen” at the end of the Eucharistic prayer with great love and trust. In “Great Amen”, we say from the depths of our lives, “Jesus I trust in you as my Lord and God and I give you my life, for you are the Risen Lord now in glory in Heaven”.

The Third Elevation of the Host:

Finally, the priest again elevates the Sacred Host at the time of Holy Communion, first of all before the whole congregation when he says “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” and then to each of us as we receive the Blessed Sacrament into our own lives. This third elevation reminds us of yet another aspect of the Holy Mass which is the hope of the heavenly banquet when we will sit with the Lord in a truly holy communion. This is a foretaste of Heaven and heavenly communion. At the sacred banquet in Heaven will come the fruitfulness of the sacrifice of Calvary when all the redeemed in the power of Our Lord’s Resurrection and Ascension will be gathered into the presence of the living and true God and in Jesus be united into the very heart of the Blessed Trinity Himself. Jesus suffered all so that you and I could enter into the heavenly banquet of the love shared by the Most Blessed Trinity.

As we become more aware of the moments of the elevations at Mass, we come to enter more deeply into the celebration and receive ever more graces. For the Lord Jesus is truly “lifted up” for us and for our salvation and is the source of love and mercy for the whole world.

Spreading The Divine Mercy Devotion In Papua New Guinea

ABOUT 19 years ago A Manly, New South Wales Woman Crescentia Anderson, then living in her native Papua New Guinea, had the spark of an idea to start an Apostolate to the Divine Mercy.

The inspiration came from a little leaflet on the devotion she picked up in St Monica’s Cathedral in Cairns.

Today the Awesome Shrine of Divine Mercy Chapel, taking shape in PNG’s Mt Hagen district, can be traced to that initial response.

Meeting Crescentia, a force of nature, is an experience in itself, and an inspirational one.

“Brother Paul, God is great,” she says, before taking me back to that day in January 1994 when she invited three other women to start devotions in honour of the Divine Mercy at St Mary’s Cathedral, Port Moresby.

“The Spirit moved me and ‘bang’ that was it – I realized if I didn’t do it, who would.

“I handpicked each of them; I didn’t really know them but was somehow led to them.

“Each immediately said ‘yes’, starting with a very helpful lady who worked in a Pharmacy in Port Moresby where I sometimes got cough mixture.”

It wasn’t until later, Crescentia realised how fortuitous her choice had been.

“One day in 1998, a young man in the Divine Mercy prayer group said to me: ‘Aunty did you realise four of you represent the four regions of PNG (the Highlands, the New Guinea islands, the PNG mainland and the southern region)?’

“I said: ‘Son, you’re right; this is truly the work of God’.”

Crescentia was initially led in a dream to devotion to the Blessed Virgin.

Full of enthusiasm, she led a pilgrimage group from PNG to South Korea’s Our Lady of Naju shrine in October 1993.

“We brought back two litres each of holy water from Mother Mary’s well there as well as two small statues each,” she said.

“But, I believe the Mother ultimately led me to the Son.”

On her return to Port Moresby, she approached St Joseph’s parish priest Fr Paul Guy about forming a Divine Mercy prayer group at St Mary’s Cathedral.

“Fr Paul had not been enthusiastic about the pilgrimage to South Korea and was not keen on the prayer group either,” she said.

“He said he’d seen others who had tried to start similar prayer groups and had failed.

“I said: don’t compare me with other people, pray for me and if it’s God’s will it will happen; if it’s not, I will have done my best.”

The prayer meeting, to be held each Sunday, had a 1.45pm arrival for a 2pm start.

Prayer and hymns were held for an hour, concluding with the Divine Mercy 3pm prayer.

The apparently miraculous healing of Mt Hagen’s Rose Ume – who suffered from a chronic back problem – at this first prayer meeting would ultimately lead to the start of the Shrine of Divine Mercy Chapel.

At this first meeting, Crescentia challenged the other three women to each bring someone along next time.

“Next Sunday numbers had increased to seven, then they went to nine, then to 12, then to 17,” she said enthusiastically.

“We lost count after that – and by June 1995, we had two other Divine Mercy prayer groups formed in other parishes and soon these had up to 100 attending.”

In December 1995, another significant event occurred when two members of the Congregation of Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy visited Australia to promote the Feast of the Divine Mercy.

It had been one of their congregation, St Maria Faustina Kowalska, who had laid the foundations for what became proclaimed by Pope John Paul II as Divine Mercy Sunday on April 30, 2000.

The Pope made the proclamation in his homily at the Polish saint’s canonization.

The Sisters were speaking in some southern states and going as far north as Cairns.

For the ever-enthusiastic Crescentia, the chance to divert these spokeswomen for the Divine Mercy cause was too good to miss.

“Through fundraising around Port Moresby, we managed to find enough money to pay their fares to PNG,” she said.

“St Mary’s Cathedral was packed to overflowing to hear the Sisters’ message, as were other churches they visited.”

Another significant link in the chain of events to start the Mt Hagen chapel came in October 2005 when Crescentia and two other members of the St Mary’s Cathedral group went to Cracow in Poland to attend the Second International Congress on the Divine Mercy message and devotion.

The group lit a candle from one originally lit by Pope John Paul II in 2003.

The candle re-lit and placed in a lamp was welcomed to Port Moresby at a Mass in St Mary’s Cathedral in 2006.

The lamp was then taken by eight women on the invitation of Rugist village, Rose Ume’s home.

“We celebrated the Feast of Divine Mercy there in 2006 and many wonderful things happened,” Crescentia said.

“After we left, I heard people had been touched by the message of the Divine Mercy.

“They were particularly impressed by healing of a young man with epilepsy and saw the power of Divine Mercy.

“It was the people from the village who initiated and decided to build the shrine – I had no hand in this, only God had.”

Funding has been a challenge.

“Business houses in Mt Hagen were approached but there was no response,” Crescentia said.

“The people’s Polish parish priest Fr Bogdan said ‘How are we going to afford to build this?’

“They said they trusted Jesus and the chapel would be built.”

In 2010, the priest went to Poland to appeal for help and received financial support.

Local fundraising began after a statement by Archbishop Douglas Young of Mt Hagen during his celebration of the Feast of Divine Mercy at the incomplete chapel.

So far about 80,000 kina (about $35,000) has been raised and spent but a further 150 to 200,000 kina is still needed to complete the chapel.

“God willing, more money will come in even after the chapel is completed to build a pilgrim house and a convent for St Faustina’s congregation,” Crescentia said.

It’s a huge project but already well on the way. The chapel still needs a roof.

“How do they do it?” Crescentia said.

“To tell the truth, I don’t know … all I asked for was space for images of Mary, St Joseph and the Divine Mercy.

“I’m so amazed with the dedication, love and joy they’re doing this.

“The hope is the chapel can be completed by Divine Mercy Sunday next year so it can be blessed and become a house of prayer.”

Meanwhile, the devotion continues to spread, with five PNG dioceses now involved.

In 2006, 10,000 copies were printed in PNG’s lingua franca, Tok pisin.

In 2009, 20,000 copies on the Divine Mercy were printed in English either to be sold or handed out free to disadvantaged people.

Donations for the Mt Hagen Chapel continue to come in from various sources including $1000 recently from a Wynnum couple.

People often ask Crescentia why she is so passionate about the apostolate.

“Because the most beautiful thing in my life is to have known the Mercy of God – his love is above and beyond our sins; his love is unfathomable,” she said.


Credits : Paul Dobbyn -- The Catholic Leader, Australia 

Our Lady Help Of Christians -- Feast Day May 24, 2020

Mother Mary is the help of every individual Christian. When a child is frightened or hurt or in any need it runs to its mother, and mother always helps. When a child cries for help mother rushes to its assistance. That is just what Mary, Help of Christians, does for each one of us. When we are attacked by the enemies of our soul or body, she hurries to our help. 

One of the greatest enemies of our soul is the world. By the world we mean the spirit of the world, a spirit that entirely forgets and neglects God. The enemy is called "secularism" which means worldliness.

This spirit is not one of faith; it is not one of morals. It is a spirit that condemns or ignores sacred things. It is a spirit that permits and approves immorality, bad example, contraception, abortion, etc., etc. These practices are the enemies of the individual soul and Mary is our protection against them.

 In 1214 she gave the Rosary to Saint Dominic as a weapon to combat the Albigensian heresy which was devastating Southern France. It is very clear to Christians and it is also the Will of God that we have and will continue to have the Help of Mary through the recitation of the Holy Rosary.

In the year 1531 Our Lady appeared in Mexico to an Indian named Juan Diego. He was a humble peasant aged 51. As a result of the apparitions, over 10 million Indians were converted to Catholicism, the sacrificial killings of babies stopped, and Our Lady left an image which is a reflection of herself imprinted miraculously on the tilma of Juan Diego. 

In, 1571 the whole of Christendom was saved by Mary Help of Christians when faithful Catholics throughout Europe prayed the Rosary. The great battle of Lepanto occurred on October 7th 1571. For this reason this date has been chosen as the Feast of the Holy Rosary.

Near the end of the 17th century, Emperor Leopold I of Austria took refuge in the Shrine of Mary Help of Christians at Pasau, when 200,000 Ottoman Turks besieged the capital city of Vienna. 

A great victory occurred thanks to Mary Help of Christians. On September 8th, Feast of Our Lady's Birthday, plans were drawn for the battle. On September 12, Feast of the Holy Name of Mary, Vienna was finally freed through the intercession of Mary Help of Christians. All Europe had joined with the Emperor crying out "Mary, Help!" and praying the Holy Rosary.

In 1809, Napoleon's men entered the Vatican, arrested Pius VII and brought him in chains to Grenoble, and eventually Fontainbleau. His imprisonment lasted five years.

The Pope smuggled out orders from prison for the whole of Christendom to pray to Our Lady Help of Christians, and thus the whole of Europe once again became a spiritual battle ground, not of arms against ruthless arms, but of Rosaries against ruthless military might. Soon Napoleon was off the throne and the Pope freed from prison. 

After proving her maternal help, throughout the centuries, Our Lady has continued to appear in hundreds of places throughout the world mainly during the 20th century, Lourdes and Fatima being the most famous apparitions.

She has brought help from Heaven, and has warned her children to do prayer and penance as a formula for peace. She has stressed that her children must pray the Holy Rosary daily. 

Let us continue to call on Our Lady, Help of Christians, in these sorrowful times, so that her Immaculate Heart will triumph and her Divine Son Jesus, will reign in the hearts of all mankind!

The Divine Mercy Statue Causing A Stir

KANSAS CITY, Missouri. - 

It is 25 feet tall, weighs 4 tons and overlooks Interstate 35 near Liberty, Mo. And for two months, thousands of motorists have driven by, wondering what it is.

Slow down and you'll see it is a steel statue of Jesus.

Yet it's not near a church, it doesn't look like a monument and it almost appears as if it's in someone's backyard.

It's baffling.

"I just thought it was massive, and it just caught my eye as I drove by," said Patricia Downey of Lathrop, Mo. "I wondered about the significance about it and who owned it."

Some people have barely noticed it, while others have stopped to stare.

For some, it is holy.

"Lots of people will come and pray in front of the statue," said John Harrison, spokesman for Divine Mercy LLC, a development company.

The company owns the statue, the land it stands on and the duplexes nearby.

"Some people will just gaze at it," Harrison said. "It's not quite a billboard, but it certainly has a message."

And that's what everyone wants to know - the message or its meaning.

The best person to answer that question would be the man who commissioned the statue - the owner of the property - but he doesn't want the attention.

It isn't shame, Harrison said. It's that the owner wants this to be about Christ.

"He wants no merit," said Harrison, who attends the same parish as the owner.

Through Harrison, the owner said the purpose of the statue is to be an important image for the public.

According to county property records, the statue is on land owned by Jim O'Loughlin.

But the people who are coming to worship don't seem to care who the owner is or why the statue is there.

In fact, Harrison said, the statue is essentially being donated to the community.

When the statue was completed, it was displayed for 25,000 people at the Eucharist Family Rosary Crusade at Kauffman Stadium, home of the Kansas City Royals, on May 25.

It was supposed to go from there to Divine Mercy's newest development near I-35 and Parvin Road, but construction was delayed, so the statue needed a temporary site.

So for the last several weeks, it has been at 9118 N.E. 73rd St. in Kansas City, across the street from the duplex's leasing office facing I-35.

It will be moved to its final destination soon, Harrison said.

Residents at the duplexes are just as baffled as most I-35 motorists.

"It's just - there," said one man.

But Catholics might recognize the statue.

In 1931, an uneducated Polish nun named Mary Faustina Kowalska began having encounters with Jesus, she wrote in a diary.

During the encounters, he dictated a prayer to her. The prayer is known as the Chaplet of Divine Mercy.

But later, he also commanded her to commission a painting of how he appeared to her, and that became the Vilnius image, which the statue portrays in a three-dimensional figure.

Jesus' right hand is raised in blessing and his left hand is touching his heart, with rays emanating from it.

Artist Dale Lamphere of Sturgis, S.D., cast the head, hands and feet with stainless steel, and a lightning-resistant rod supports the hollow body.

At its final site, the statue will be blessed and stand at the head of a reflecting pond. It will be open for public viewing in November.

"It will be in a quiet place where people can contemplate God," Harrison said.

A Divine Mercy Statue in Texas

A vision of Christ seen by a Polish nun in 1931 is the foundation of an increasingly popular Roman Catholic devotion in the 21st century.

"I saw the Lord Jesus clothed in a white garment," 26-year-old Sister Maria Faustina wrote in her diary. "One hand was raised in a gesture of blessing, the other was touching the garment at the breast."

Two large rays emanated from Christ's chest, one red, the other pale. Christ commanded the nun to artistically re-create the image with the words, "Jesus, I trust in you" as its signature.

In her diary, she wrote that she was told, "I want this image to be solemnly blessed on the first Sunday after Easter. That Sunday is to be the feast of mercy."

The painting that Sister Maria commissioned has been reproduced on countless holy cards. On Sunday, St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church will dedicate a 12-foot bronze statue of the Divine Mercy image the nun saw in her convent room.

The statue, atop an 8-foot pedestal, will be hard to miss at the busy intersection of Buffalo Speedway and Holcombe.

"I pray to God there will be no accidents when (motorists) see it for the first time," said the Rev. John T. Weyer, St. Vincent's pastor.

Weyer is an ardent promoter of the Divine Mercy, a devotion to God's compassion revealed to the nun over several years. (The devotion includes a chaplet, or specific prayers said with rosary beads.)

Before Weyer moved to St. Vincent de Paul three years ago, he directed the construction of the Divine Mercy Chapel at St. Laurence Catholic Church in Sugar Land.

"I teach it wherever I go," Weyer said. On Divine Mercy weekend, Weyer intends to preach on the message of God's compassion at six of the church's seven Masses.

The priest said he was introduced to the devotion 14 years ago when a parishioner gave him a copy of St. Maria Faustina's Diary: Divine Mercy in My Soul.

The Nun, who had only a third-grade education, described the vision and its effect on her spiritual life in simple sentences.

"I read a little bit each night before I went to bed," Weyer said. "It hit me like a ton of bricks; I was just overwhelmed. I was overwhelmed with the insight into the mercy of God and how much he wants to offer mercy but so many won't even ask for it."

The popularity of the devotion owes a lot to Pope John Paul II, who became familiar with the nun's writings as a priest in Poland.

One of the pope's first encyclicals, released in 1980, was on God's mercy, said Sister Madeleine Grace, chairman of the theology department at the University of St. Thomas.

"It was influenced by her writing," Grace said. "He had read St. Faustina's diary and knew of it."

The nun was beatified in 1993, and the devotion became known because the pope promoted it, Grace said.

In April 2000, John Paul II canonized the nun, declaring her St. Maria Faustina and establishing the Sunday after Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday.

Weyer said God's mercy "is the hope of the world; it is the hope of each individual person."

The basic message of the Divine Mercy, Weyer said, can be distilled into an "ABC" format:

•Ask for God's mercy.
•Be merciful to others.
•Completely trust in God and his providence for you.

Confidence in the divine is reflected in the devotion's prayer, "Jesus, I trust in you," the priest said.

In the image St. Faustina saw, the red rays from Christ's heart symbolize the blood that was shed for mankind's salvation, and the blue symbolizes the water of grace and spiritual rebirth, Weyer said.

The devotion extends worldwide, said Lee Bowers, director of Marian activities for the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. Her office is also now promoting the Divine Mercy devotion.

"It is a way of life, not just a devotion," said Bowers, an international speaker for the devotion through an outreach of the Marians of the Immaculate Conception, an order of priests.

She has spoken to audiences in Hong Kong, Canada, Mexico and the Philippines as well as throughout the United States.

In the Philippines, television, radio and even traffic lights mark the 3 p.m. hour for the praying of the chaplet, Bowers said.

It even attracts some Protestants, she said.

Bowers will celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday at the devotion's national shrine in Stockbridge, Mass.

She will also participate in the taping of a 13-week series on the devotion to be broadcast nationally in October by Eternal Word Television Network, a Catholic cable broadcaster.

Bowers said the devotion reminds people that God can forgive any sin.

"The one thing that seems to touch people's hearts is that God is a merciful God no matter what they have done," she said.

"We have been a world where we forget to forgive our brother for the wrongs done," Bowers said.