Divine Mercy
The message of Divine Mercy entrusted to St. Faustina: how to pray the Chaplet step by step, the Hour of Mercy at 3 o’clock, the image with the words “Jesus, I trust in You,” and Divine Mercy Sunday.
The message of Divine Mercy
Mercy is not a new idea. It runs through the whole Bible: “Praise the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever” (Ps 135:1, Douay-Rheims). The Gospel itself, the Catechism says, is the revelation in Jesus Christ of God’s mercy to sinners (CCC 1846). As Pope Francis put it, God never tires of forgiving us (Angelus, March 17, 2013; Evangelii Gaudium 3), but to receive His mercy we must admit our faults (CCC 1847).
In the 1930s, Jesus asked a young Polish sister, St. Faustina Kowalska, to make this mercy known in a fresh way. The devotion she passed on can be summed up simply:
- Ask for His mercy, with confidence.
- Be merciful to others, in deed, word, and prayer.
- Trust completely in Jesus: “Jesus, I trust in You.”
The Church approved the devotion and made it part of her calendar: in the year 2000, St. John Paul II canonized Faustina and named the Second Sunday of Easter Divine Mercy Sunday. Private revelations like Faustina’s “do not belong… to the deposit of faith”; it is not “their role to improve or complete Christ’s definitive Revelation, but to help live more fully by it in a certain period of history” (CCC 67). The best way to answer the call to mercy is to go to Confession, where Christ’s mercy is given to us in the sacrament.
How to pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy
About 7 to 10 minutes. You use ordinary five-decade rosary beads.
The English words of the Chaplet come from a copyrighted translation of St. Faustina’s Diary, so we do not reproduce them here. Keep the official text open as you pray: The Chaplet of Divine Mercy (USCCB), or How to Recite the Chaplet (Marian Fathers). The steps below tell you which prayer goes on which bead.
- Sign of the Cross. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
- Optional opening prayers. Many people begin with St. Faustina’s prayer to the Merciful Jesus at the hour of His death (Diary, 1319), then pray three times the short invocation to the Blood and Water that flowed from the Heart of Jesus (Diary, 84). Both are on the Marian Fathers’ page linked above.
- Our Father, Hail Mary, and the Apostles’ Creed. If you need the words: Our Father, Hail Mary, Apostles’ Creed.
- On each large (“Our Father”) bead: the Eternal Father prayer. You offer Jesus, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, to the Father to make amends for our sins and for the sins of everyone (Diary, 475–476).
- On each of the ten small (“Hail Mary”) beads: a short prayer that calls on Christ’s Passion and begs the Father’s mercy for us and for all people (Diary, 476).
- Repeat steps 4 and 5 for all five decades.
- To conclude, three times: the Holy God prayer (the ancient Trisagion: “Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One”), asking mercy on us and on the whole world (Diary, 476).
- Optional closing prayer. St. Faustina’s prayer to the Eternal God, whose mercy is endless (Diary, 950), is often added. It is on the USCCB’s Chaplet page. End with the Sign of the Cross.
Order of prayers from the Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska (Diary, 475–476), as presented by the USCCB and the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception (National Shrine of The Divine Mercy, Stockbridge, Mass.). For the full wording, see The Chaplet of Divine Mercy (USCCB) or the Marian Fathers’ step-by-step guide.
The Chaplet can also be prayed as a novena from Good Friday to the Saturday before Divine Mercy Sunday.
The 3 o’clock Hour of Mercy
Jesus died on the cross at about the ninth hour, three o’clock in the afternoon (Mk 15:34–37; Lk 23:44–46). St. Faustina recorded that Jesus asked her to remember His Passion at this hour each day and to ask for mercy, especially for sinners (Diary, 1320, 1572). It does not have to be long. Many people pray the Chaplet at 3 p.m. If you are busy, it is enough to pause for a moment, think of Jesus on the cross, and say, “Jesus, I trust in You.”
“But one of the soldiers with a spear opened his side, and immediately there came out blood and water.”John 19:34 (Douay-Rheims)
The image: “Jesus, I trust in You”
On February 22, 1931, in the convent at Płock, St. Faustina saw Jesus clothed in white, one hand raised in blessing and the other touching His breast, from which two rays shone out, one red and one pale. He asked her to have an image painted as she saw Him, with the signature “Jesus, I trust in You” (Polish: Jezu, ufam Tobie) (Diary, 47–49). She later explained that the pale ray stands for the Water that makes souls righteous, and the red ray for the Blood that is the life of souls (Diary, 299), recalling the blood and water from the pierced side of Christ (Jn 19:34).
The first image was painted in Vilnius in 1934 by Eugeniusz Kazimirowski, under the direction of Faustina and her confessor, Blessed Michael Sopoćko. The best-known version, by Adolf Hyła, hangs in the Shrine of Divine Mercy in Kraków-Łagiewniki. Like any holy image, it is honored not for its paint and canvas but because it points us to Christ (CCC 2132).
Divine Mercy Sunday
The Second Sunday of Easter, the last day of the Easter Octave, is also called Divine Mercy Sunday. St. John Paul II announced it at Faustina’s canonization on April 30, 2000, and the Congregation for Divine Worship confirmed it by decree on May 5, 2000. The Gospel that day is always John 20:19–31, where the risen Jesus breathes on the Apostles and gives them the power to forgive sins.
- Apr 42027Divine Mercy Sunday White
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The indulgence. By a decree of the Apostolic Penitentiary (June 29, 2002), a plenary indulgence is granted on Divine Mercy Sunday, under the usual conditions (sacramental Confession, Eucharistic Communion, and prayer for the Pope’s intentions, with a spirit completely detached from affection for any sin, even venial), to the faithful who take part in prayers and devotions held in honor of Divine Mercy in any church or chapel, 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, such as “Merciful Jesus, I trust in You.” Those who truly cannot go to church, such as the sick, can also gain it under the conditions set out in the decree. What is an indulgence?
A fitting fact: St. John Paul II died on April 2, 2005, on the eve of Divine Mercy Sunday, and he was canonized on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 27, 2014. Read his story.
St. Faustina Kowalska (1905–1938)
Helena Kowalska was born on August 25, 1905, in Głogowiec, Poland, the third of ten children in a poor farming family. She had only about three years of schooling. In 1925 she entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, taking the name Sister Mary Faustina. She lived in convents in Kraków, Płock, and Vilnius and worked as a cook, gardener, and porter.
At her confessor’s request she kept a diary, now published as Divine Mercy in My Soul, recording what she understood Jesus to be asking of her. She died of tuberculosis in Kraków on October 5, 1938, at the age of 33. Her feast is October 5.
The spread of the devotion was restricted by a notification of the Holy Office (March 6, 1959), partly because of faulty translations of her writings. After a careful review, encouraged by the Archdiocese of Kraków under Cardinal Karol Wojtyła, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith lifted the restriction in a notification of April 15, 1978, which cited “original documents unknown in 1959.” She was beatified on April 18, 1993, and canonized on April 30, 2000, the first saint canonized in the Great Jubilee Year 2000. Since a decree of the Congregation for Divine Worship of May 18, 2020, her feast has been an optional memorial in the General Roman Calendar.
Divine Mercy novena Prepare for Confession Easter season guide
Sources
- Catechism of the Catholic Church 67, 1846–1847, 2132.
- Holy See, biography of St. Maria Faustina Kowalska (canonization, April 30, 2000).
- Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, decree on the Second Sunday of Easter, “Divine Mercy Sunday,” May 5, 2000, and decree inscribing St. Faustina in the General Roman Calendar, May 18, 2020.
- Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, notification of March 6, 1959 (AAS 51 [1959], 271); Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, notification of April 15, 1978 (AAS 70 [1978], 350).
- Pope Francis, Angelus, March 17, 2013; apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (2013), 3.
- Apostolic Penitentiary, decree on indulgences attached to devotions in honor of Divine Mercy, June 29, 2002.
- Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception, How to Recite the Chaplet (official text of the Chaplet); USCCB, Chaplet of Divine Mercy.
- Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul (Marian Press), nos. 47–49, 84, 299, 475–476, 950, 1209–1229, 1319–1320, 1572. The English translation is copyrighted; we cite it by number and do not reproduce the Chaplet prayers.
- Scripture: Douay-Rheims Bible, Challoner revision (public domain).