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— Mercy for a Broken Church ‘Observing myself and those who are close to me, I have come to understand how great an influence I have on other souls, not by heroic deeds, but by small actions like the movement of a hand, a look, and many other things too numerous to mention, which effect and reflect in the souls of others.’ (1475) We as the Church have been tainted and shamed by her sexual brokenness. St. Faustina is right: the holiness and hellishness of each member impact th

— Mercy for the Truthful Church ‘I will allow convents and churches to be destroyed…Souls without love and devotion, souls full of egoism and self-love, souls full of pride and arrogance, souls full of deceit and hypocrisy, lukewarm souls with just enough warmth to keep them alive. My Heart cannot bear this…I cannot stand them because they are neither good or bad…If they do not repent and become enkindled by their first love, I will deliver them over to the fate of this world

— Mercy for the Worldly Church ‘O my Jesus, I beg You on behalf of the whole Church, give us holy priests. You Yourself, maintain them in holiness. O Divine and Great High Priest, may the power of Your mercy accompany them everywhere and protect them from the devil’s traps and snares which are continually set for the souls of priests. May the power of Your Mercy, O Lord, shatter and bring to naught all that might tarnish the sanctity of priests, for You can do all things.’ (1

— Mercy for the Church ‘What a joy it is to be a faithful child of the Church! O how much I love Holy Church and all those who live in it! I look upon them as living members of Christ, who is their Head. I burn with love with those You love; I suffer with those who suffer. I am consumed with sorrow with those who are cold and ungrateful.’ (511) Above all, St. Faustina was a child of the Church. She regarded the Church as she regarded herself—the least yet much loved member of

— Mercy for Minors ‘Truth wears a crown of thorns.’ (1103) Jesus instructed St. Faustina: ‘Pray to defend the souls of children against the spirit of evil.’ (1156) That’s why we fight for marriage—one man committed to one woman. For the sake of the children conceived there, we vie for the integrity and clarity of marriage. Little ones have no vote in the battle to redefine marriage. They have no voice to speak out the shame visited upon them by two moms or dads. Children are

— Mercy for Marriage ‘O Jesus, You do not give a reward for the successful performance of a work, but for the good will and the labor undertaken. Therefore, I am completely at peace, even if all my efforts and undertakings shall be thwarted or even come to naught.’ (952) In 2000, God called Desert Stream Ministries to fight for marriage in the USA. Reaching for the gold ring of ‘normal’, gay activists were seeking to redefine marriage by excluding the need for one man committ

— Urgency and Mercy ‘I have eternity for punishing sinners, and so I am prolonging the time of Mercy for the sake of sinners. But woe to them who do not recognize this time of My visitation! (1160) ‘A strange power has been pushing me into action, not giving me a moment’s peace. A strange ardor has been lit in my heart, urging me to action and I cannot stop it.’ (569) How can we not experience the disquiet of St. Faustina? We live between the ‘now’ of Mercy and the ‘not yet’

— Boldness and Mercy ‘If the Lord demands something of a soul, He gives it the means to carry it out; through grace, He makes it capable. At the Lord’s command, the soul can undertake things beyond its expectation if God’s power and strength, which makes the soul courageous and valiant, are manifest within it.’ (1090) ‘Your assignment on earth is to beg Mercy for the whole world.’ (570) Jesus gave St. Faustina a bold calling: to immerse souls in the flood of God’s Mercy at Ca

— Patience and Mercy ‘The greatest power is hidden in patience. I see that patience always leads to victory, although not immediately; but that victory will become manifest after many years.’ (1514) During this fast, we are crying out for many ‘fruitless’ ones who have wandered far from their home in Christ. We beg God to manifest His Mercy to them. At the same time, we know that God is priming us to be merciful, an answer to our own prayers. He intends to fertilize and break

— Mercy for Beloved Enemies ‘Be always merciful, as I am merciful. Love everyone out of love for Me, even your greatest enemies, so that My Mercy may be fully reflected in Your heart.’ (1695) St. Faustina recorded those words as she listened to God. She was distressed, as a fellow sister in her religious order was spreading lies about her. Housemates’ cool and suspicious response to Faustina alerted her to such gossip. She listened to God, sought His Mercy in order to forgive

— Meekness and Mercy ‘You shall conquer by meekness.’ (1597) Meekness is about having power and choosing not to use it. For Love’s sake. From Love’s power. The soul that is genuinely meek is founded on the God of the Universe who stooped down in Mercy to make him/her great. Meekness arises out of humility. The meek soul must first be a humble one, living in moment-by-moment dependence upon Mercy. At once miserable and mighty, the meek soul courageously accepts the call to rep

— Humility and Mercy ‘God has surrounded me with His special Mercy precisely because I am the weakest of all people.’ (1099) ‘Humility is nothing but the truth.’ (1502) Mercy opens our eyes to the Creator who upon the Cross gave us everything. Mercy opens our eyes to the magnificence of our God. In the light of His splendor, our only honest response is humility. He created all yet we are but one of a billion created beings—humbling. He never sinned yet He gave up everything t

— Misery and Mercy ‘The more miserable my soul, the more I feel the ocean of God’s mercy engulfing me and giving me greater strength and power.’ (255) St. Faustina was a weak woman with a mighty calling. She learned early on to entrust her afflictions to the God of Mercy. This is our key as well. Any being-healed one who seeks to restore others must acknowledge profound weakness in order to access the Mercy that is deeper still. We live first from the fount of Life: Christ Je

— Deep Wells of Mercy ‘He brought me into such close intimacy with Himself that my heart was espoused to His heart in a loving union; I could feel the faintest stir of His heart and He of mine. The fire of my created love was joined to the ardor of His eternal love.’ (1056) Why are the sexually broken so often the recipients of Jesus’ Mercy in the Gospels? To answer this, one must first consider the depth and power of human sexuality. God made each of us a deep well of desire

— Mercy Running (an army of Magdalenes) ‘I found my destiny at the moment when my soul lost itself in You, the only object of my love.’ (57) Why was Mary Magdalene the first disciple Jesus entrusted with His Resurrection? According to John’s Gospel, Peter and John raced to the empty tomb but could not comprehend Christ Resurrected. Jesus entrusted this sight to Mary Magdalene. After Peter and John had left the tomb, having sifted through evidence of the Resurrection without s

— Mercy Rising (on trembling legs…) ‘I know that the grain of wheat must be ground between millstones in order to become food. In the same way, I must be crushed in order to be useful to the Church and to souls.’ (641) Jesus is crushed to become for us the Meal of Mercy; death precedes life, first for Christ then for Christians. Only our death is not fatal. The Risen Lord invites us to die to our props and illusions; He grants us Mercy then resurrects what in us pleases Him.

— Mercy’s Sacrifice ‘How sad I am that souls do not recognize Love. They treat Me as a dead object.’ (1385) St. Paul implores us to not take Communion unworthily (1Cor. 11:27), and Church fathers echo him. Those who persist in serious sin should think twice… How do we square this with the God of sinners, He who desires Mercy and not legalistic sacrifice? It all depends on the attitude toward our sin, and towards His Sacrifice. The main document on Holy Communion from Vatican

— Mercy’s Meal ‘Jesus, may Your pure and healthy blood circulate in my ailing organism, and may Your pure and healthy body transform my weak body, and may a healthy, vigorous life throb within me…’ (1089) I have the privilege of taking communion most mornings at a church down the street from me. This is my daily bread: the Word spoken, the Word broken and offered generously to hungry ones like me. At the center of this church is a huge cross, on which Christ hangs, His finish

— The Gaze from the Cross, Part 4  (Please also read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3) ‘When I was dying on the cross, I was not thinking about Myself but about sinners, and I prayed for them to the Father.’ (324) Prayer for sinners to enter into God’s Mercy must become action: intercession primes our hearts with God’s intentions for them. What a privilege to steep loved ones in God’s merciful heart for them! Prayer then looses merciful words and actions toward each one. I love tha

— The Gaze from the Cross, Part 2 (Please also read Part 1, Part 3 and Part 4) ‘Remember My Passion; if you don’t believe My Words, at least believe My wounds!’ (379) We meditate on the Cross, or Passion, of Jesus because His Cross is His most exquisite and profound manifestation of Mercy for us. St. Faustina says it best: ‘The greater the suffering, the purer the love.’ (53) He endured a slow, agonizing death to give us everything He had: His water for washing away our sin (