The Message
The Message of Divine Mercy is that God is merciful. He is love itself poured out for us, and He wants no one to escape that merciful love.
The message is that God wants us to turn to Him with trust and repentance while it is still a time of mercy, before he comes as the just Judge. This turning with trust to Him who is Mercy itself is the only source of peace for mankind. Turning to and imploring God’s mercy is the answer to the troubled world. There is no escaping that answer.
The Response of Trust and Conversion
What God most wants of us is to turn to Him with trust. And the first act of trust is: receive His mercy. To trust God is to rely on Him who is mercy itself. The Lord wants us to live with trust in Him in all circumstances. We trust Him because He is God, and He loves us and cares for us.
His mercy is always available to us, no matter what we have done or what state we are in, even if our sins are as black as night, and we are filled with fears and anxieties.
The greater the sinner, the greater the right he has to my mercy (Diary 723).
But there is more we can do. As Catholics, as Christians, we can go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and be reconciled to God and to man. The Lord wants us to live reconciled with Him and one another.
It’s Scriptural
The message of mercy is content and the challenge of Sacred Scripture. In the Hebrew Bible we see a God of mercy who calls His people to be merciful. In the New Testament Jesus exhorts us: Be merciful even as your Father is merciful (Lk 6.36 RSV).
He sets the highest goal for us and expects us to obtain His merciful love: Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy (Mt 5.7 RSV).
When He comes again, He will judge us on our mercy toward one another: Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of my brethren, you did it to me (Mt 25.40).
Devotion to the Divine Mercy
Our Lord not only taught Sr. Faustina the fundamentals of trust, and of mercy to others, but He also revealed special ways to live out the response to His mercy. These we call the devotion to The Divine Mercy. The word “devotion” means fulfilling our vows. It is a commitment of our lives to the Lord who is Mercy itself.
By giving our lives to The Divine Mercy – Jesus Christ Himself – we become instruments of His mercy to others, and so we can live out the command of the Lord: Be merciful even as your Father is merciful (Lk 6.36 RSV).
Through Sr. Faustina, Our Lord gave us special means of drawing on His mercy; an Image of The Divine Mercy, a Chaplet of The Divine Mercy, a Feast of Mercy, a novena, and prayer at the 3:00 hour – the hour of His death. These special means are in addition to the Sacraments of Eucharist and Reconciliation.