Special EWTN Pre-Mass Broadcast for Divine Mercy Sunday

[Music] the lord desires that his image of the divine mercy be venerated in all churches throughout the world and particularly on the first sunday after easter which he wants to be known as the feast of mercy [Music] and he promises that whoever will approach the source of life meaning holy communion on that day will receive complete remission of sin and punishment unimaginable graces will be bestowed [Music] that of course was archival footage of our beloved brother in christ father seraphim yolenko mic a pioneer of divine mercy whom the lord took home this past february 11th at the age of 90 may his soul rest in peace hello i'm father joseph roche a member of the marion fathers of the immaculate conception welcome to our broadcast of divine mercy sunday this special day of extraordinary graces in which the lord our father calls us to his friendship and to be part of his family and today we want to show you how to receive those special graces and to see how you can join us marian fathers in living this message of mercy jesus told saint faustina on that day divine mercy sunday 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 jesus said mankind will not have peace until it turns with trust to my mercy as we can see from the news every day this message is more important today than ever and that is why we are here yes it's divine mercy sunday one of the most important days of the entire year folks i'm speaking to you from rome where i serve as the marion fathers vicar general joining me this year once again is father chris aylar mic the director of the association of marian helpers and an author as well let's not forget father chris is speaking to you four thousand two hundred miles away from me at the national shrine of the divine mercy in stockbridge massachusetts welcome father chris uh hello again father joe or as father seraphim would always say greetings yes greetings indeed father chris as you know in these times of a continuing pandemic of political unrest in many parts of the world of anxiety and despair boy do we need our lord's love and his extraordinary graces more than ever people seem to be afraid like never before many even asking are the end times upon us yeah father job but as you know none of us knows when the lord will come again or even if this may be the last divine mercy sunday but we have hope that's the message today our lord doesn't want to sneak up on us and catch us by surprise so nobody's prepared and we'll all become lost souls um no not at all he wants us to be prepared to be cleansed of our impurities and any attachments we might be struggling with so that when he does come again we are ready so many people right now are caught up in all this end times prophecy and yes we must always be ready we get that but that's why he gives us divine mercy sunday as this special day this one day to help prepare us for his second coming this is what we need to be prepared yes father chris so how will the show today help us to do that well before christ comes again he empowers us to serve his church and each other by spreading the good news of the gospel that's what we want to show you how to do today we want to show you how important this message of mercy is and how the mirroring fathers have been a major part of it for the last 350 years and how you can start being a part of it today father chris you're the director of the association of marian helpers a spiritual family briefly tell us a little bit about the association well father joe the association of marion helpers is what we call spiritual benefits society where people are through prayers and financial support help this ministry of the marine fathers which is god's mission of mercy by enrolling as a marian helper you can become a member really of a family the family of god uh to receive education about our faith shared times of prayer and many necessary graces as our lord prepares us for his final coming you know it takes only a minute to join and it doesn't cost anything in fact you can go to micprayers.com to see how easy it is to become a marion harbor so through our publishing apostolate our videos and the live streaming of the sacraments that we do every day we empower our marian helpers to firmly root themselves in the supernatural life and prepare for heaven you know as you know father joe together we do the most important thing anyone can do in this world lead souls to heaven and in doing so we show you the viewer our marion helpers the path that promises a more meaningful and fulfilling life even here on earth how so all right so we want to all get to heaven right i mean that is the reason we were created and the key to make that happen is god's grace that is the beauty of our faith through the sacraments we get guaranteed grace not a symbol guarantee grace and through prayer we even add more grace on top of that so when you are a marian helper you pray for us we pray for you there is so much more power that way than being a solo man on an island thinking that you can save yourself the graces of our masses our rosaries our prayers our penances all these beautiful things are amazing and as a marian helper you can share in those graces just like you were a member of our religious community wow a just thing you know you can get the same graces as me without even having to be a priest so that's that's a good deal and that isn't just us making this up it was given to us by decree of the holy see earlier we were speaking of father seraphim this was his life's work as well he served for a time as the director of the association of marian helpers and like me father chris you're a priest whose own ministry has been greatly influenced by the divine mercy revelations given by christ to the world through saint faustina another way of saying that is that your priesthood your ministry my whole life right indeed your whole life you know where i'm going with this your whole life has been greatly influenced greatly enriched by the work father seraphim has done for christ and the church yes with without question father seraphim was a treasure for the church and for me personally millions of people um around the world have known him father seraphim as the renowned expert on the life and spirituality of saint faustina but he was the man few know this that smuggled the photographic images of the pages of saint faustina's diary out of communist poland back in 1979 so her diary could finally be published and the lord's divine mercy message and devotion could spread throughout the world finally fulfilling jesus's request you know it was father seraphim who would later go on to document saint faustina's beatification and canonization miracles so he was definitely an instrument in her becoming a saint one can easily say that side by side with blessed michael sapochco the confessor of saint faustina along with saint pope john paul ii and with faustina herself father stereopham stands really as a giant in god's design to make the divine mercy message and devotion what he referred to as the greatest grassroots movements in the entire history of the church absolutely and we'll talk more about that later father joe i must say here we are our second divine mercy sunday spent and during the covet 19 pandemic i know in stockbridge due to directives from health officials the marians are not yet able to welcome the large crowds that we've become accustomed to on divine mercy sunday yeah and this year's divine mercy sunday is made all that more atypical father you know because for the first time in both of our lives as priests we don't have father seraphim with us um he's not at the dinner table each evening holding court in his own very humble way teaching the faith to our young seminarians sharing stories of miracles you know that is how i learned about divine mercy and how i teach it today it was from trapping him at the dinner table and picking his brain so i'm glad i had an opportunity for so many years to do that because now i can share that with so many people around the world and i feel honored as the student to have learned from the master for the marriott fathers a spiritual congregation entrusted with spreading the divine mercy message and devotion we need powerful intercessors in heaven like father seraphim to help direct our endeavors because as you well know the devil doesn't like this work of ours yeah he certainly doesn't and so we'll just keep i guess you could say sticking it to him and now we have a general um in heaven directing our actions here on earth to fulfill god's will this is a blessing because when the pandemic began you know we wondered if this would even be the end of our divine mercy ministry and to the contrary god had other plans he's brought a greater good out of this out of the whole situation by bringing so many people back to their faith we get these letters every day and bringing people to our marian family to be part of his greater plan you know by the very fact that you are watching this right now um even if it is a recording later it means that god's grace is working in your heart and it means that god has chosen you to be part of something special um so again thank you for cooperating with that grace and being here um wow father joe what god is doing right now is amazing it reminds me of the words of saint faustina when she said that her mission will continue after her death you know in fact it will kick into high gear now those are my words not hers but i feel the same way about father seraphim his mission is now in heaven and has been kicked into high gear helping our marian hampers themselves to get to heaven yes indeed throughout our program today all leading up to holy mass we'll be sharing moments from our archives featuring the late and great father seraphim yeah and we'll be touching upon all the things that were so near and dear to his heart as we mentioned things have been interesting over the last year to say the least but 2 21 2021 brings even more interesting and grace-filled events this is the year we mark the 90th anniversary of the revelation of the divine mercy image it's the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the promotion of divine mercy by the marian fathers it's the 350th anniversary year of the founding of the marian fathers and it's the 150th anniversary of the birth of our own blessed george matulitis our congregation's renovator the man who affects you our viewer directly because he foresaw the important role for the laity long before the reforms of vatican 2 and pope john paul ii apostolic exhortation the lay members of christ's faithful people but there's something else about this year father chris do you recall yeah father joe the holy father declared a year of saint joseph absolutely correct on the 350th anniversary of the founding of the marian fathers just when it would seem december 8th the feast of the immaculate conception couldn't be any sweeter for us and the world pope francis declared a year of saint joseph that extends through this coming december 8th yeah and as you know father joe it was a decision that brought huge momentum to our efforts promoting devotion to saint joseph true a patron of the marian fathers saint joseph has been a spiritual model for our priests and brothers ever since our province in the united states was founded and now he is key for our marian helpers and really the whole world as well yeah and because we have so much to be thankful to saint joseph for we've made sure that when pilgrims come here to the shrine when you drive up our road that leads up to the property the first thing that you see is actually a statue of saint joseph um we've also kept the image of saint joseph or an image of saint joseph in all of our houses including our guest houses and one of the first outdoor shrines that we built here on eden hill was known as saint joseph's patio so it's now the holy family shrine so even better and we just remodeled it so we are excited to have people finally be able to come visit here soon we hope and pray for their own family through the intercession of the holy family so we marians pray for our marian family which is all of you and to help do that we entrust all of our work and our prayers to saint joseph yes and i know that readers of marion helper magazine formerly known as the marion helpers bulletin can find stories on saint joseph going back to our second issue of all time in 1947 in 2014 father michael gately wrote a beautiful novena to saint joseph which we shared once again with visitors to our website thedivinemercy.org leading up to the solemnity of saint joseph this past march 19th yeah and through miriam press the publishing arm of the marian fathers we have promoted saint joseph as a spiritual model for all of the church most notably with the publication last year of consecration to saint joseph the wonders of our spiritual father by father donald calloway who is one of our marrying priests who will be joining us shortly as one of our guests yes indeed there's an interesting story about how all this unfolded in 2019 father donald had written a letter to every bishop in the united states asking each to declare a year of saint joseph on the diocesan level concurrently he asked members of the faithful to also petition their bishops with a similar request in all i believe 12 bishops followed through yeah and he didn't stop there he wrote a letter to pope francis directly which when i heard that i was like well that's not gonna get he's not gonna look at that or read that he probably gets too much but anyway it was hand delivered to the holy father on may 2nd 2019 uh by a friend of the marian's bishop hector zordon from argentina now we know that the pope and this bishop opened the letter and actually had a conversation about it so wow i guess i was wrong yes and as last year unfolded and father donald's book became a best-seller we began to hear some chatter here in rome that big news may be coming then on the morning of december 8th on the 150th anniversary of blessed pope pius ix declaration of saint joseph as patron of the universal church the holy father announced the year of saint joseph yeah you would have to think that there is some kind of connection right okay well anyway we're pleased today to welcome father don who comes to us from the marion's house of formation in steubenville ohio that's basically where many of our seminarians live work and study so greetings father dawn it's great to see you thanks so much for taking the time to be with us and congratulations on all the success thanks father chris great to be with you thanks father so all of us here at the national shrine of the divine mercy know how busy you've been since you released consecration to saint joseph and we're glad to have this opportunity finally to talk with you about it um there is something however that i've been wanting to know myself about and that is what drew you to write this book in the first place i've never even had a chance to ask you so basically why saint joseph and why now well father um you know i've been a priest for 18 years now and about four years ago i just got a real strong sense that we needed to bring in saint joseph that i thought what what a better person to bring in than the head of the holy family uh to help us to to shore this thing up to correct a lot of the misunderstandings of what marriage is of what family life is and you know we've got a lot of confusion today and so in my prayer i just got a really strong sense that saint joseph is going to be needed um right now more than ever and i i believe i was inspired to just start doing a lot of research on saint joseph and to put together a program um similar i think to like st louis de montfort's marian consecration where people really get to know saint joseph and fall in love with him and then entrust and consecrate themselves to his spiritual fatherhood and uh yeah that's that's pretty much the reason behind it now that's awesome father don you know rarely do we see something like this sweep through the entire universal church so it really has to be god's will and we as marians are blessed to be part of this you know you just said that you were talking about this book or thinking about it about four years ago but when did you actually start writing it because it seems to have all happened so fast yeah so i got the inspiration in 2017 um and that's when i started thinking how would i put it together what would i do and that set me out kind of on a quest to travel around the world and gather tons of information about saint joseph and and i'm glad i did it before the coronavirus because i wouldn't have been able to travel you know like like i did then if it were today yeah we are all in this boat and praying for end of all this stuff soon you know father miriam press published this book at the beginning of last year so beginning of 2020 and then what happens next pope francis declares a year of saint joseph yeah no doubt i mean that's awesome totally awesome so by declaring a year of saint joseph the holy father has called upon the world to turn to him as our intercessor and in a way the most important intercessor after i guess you could say mary and to be people of prayer and self-sacrifice for the good of all just as saint joseph was an example so this whole thing took us totally by surprise and i think including you yourself father don um can you share your own reaction when you heard the news yeah you know i have to say i december 8th 2020 was probably one of the happiest days of my life because you know i've been praying about this actually in the first edition of the book consecration of saint joseph i actually asked people to pray that the pope would declare a year of saint joseph and and i wrote a letter to the pope in 2019 asking him to do it so when when december 8th came around and i was getting notifications from rome from some friends over there that the pope in fact did it i was ecstatic i mean i was so happy my like my body was numb that entire day and i have to say since then i've just been so happy that we have this i mean the first ever year of st joseph in church history this is awesome yeah we we at the marion helper center here father have received hundreds if not thousands of calls emails letters texts from people all around the world thanking us for publishing this consecration to saint joseph so the book is clearly having the impact that you hoped for i think um but can you tell us a little about the reaction to the book from your perspective you know and maybe share how it's impacted your own ministry yeah you know what's funny father is um sometimes i feel bad for you guys up there because i keep fielding people to you and because i get notifications from like india and vietnam and south africa that they want to book and i'm like well you know i wrote it but i have to send you to the marion helper center and so i'm constantly sending you all those emails so i'm probably part of the problem for you guys working so hard up there but isn't it awesome father i mean that so many people are turning to saint joseph right now and i tell you the response that i've seen is just off the charts with men's groups doing the program women's groups parishes diocese i mean i've talked to so many bishops in the last several months who are just so excited about this and one particular group you know that just is so inspiring to me in the philippines right now father um every bishop is going to consecrate their diocese to saint joseph and the entire episcopacy of the philippines is going to consecrate the entire country to saint joseph on may 1st that is just wonderful and that's awesome father don because both you and i share a love of the filipino people a love of the filipino culture and god bless them it's their 500th year anniversary this year of the coming of christianity to the philippines an amazing group of people and so i'm with you on that and your efforts to share the love of saint joseph that you have have led you on a definite wild spiritual journey all over the world um but what has been the most satisfying part of all of this for you personally i think for me you know right now as everybody knows i mean there's so much anxiety and fear in the world and a lot of uncertainty about things i think that this you know devotion this consecration is giving people hope it's giving them a a peace in the midst of a lot of problems in the world and that delights me i mean just to hear that from people saying to me father during this whole pandemic doing this consecration helped me to maintain peace and to put things in perspective for me as a priest that's just that delights me you know to know that it's having that impact and also i mean i'm hearing things about men who are receiving new freedom in the area of purity you know many men today struggle with that particular vice but going to st joseph um they're telling me is greatly helping them and that too just i'm so excited about that yeah that's very true how st joseph can help all of us men and women obviously too as you know there are several consecration programs out there many people are familiar with our very own total consecration to mary by father mike gately which also had an amazing reaction around the world now we have this movement during the year of saint joseph to make a consecration to saint joseph so could you tell us a little bit about what a consecration is and how the consecrations to mary and joseph although they're different actually relate to one another sometimes people have asked me father can i consecrate myself to saint joseph if i've already consecrated myself to marry or i don't even know what a consecration is father what do i do well you know we're primarily consecrated to jesus christ he's our god and that's what we're all about by our baptism we share in his mission we're consecrated to him but you know if we want to get super close to him it's a really good idea to get to know his mom and his father his earthly father saint joseph so these kind of consecrations are really powerful they change lives and and ultimately they bring us closer to jesus and and i've said to people you know we really need saint joseph right now in a particular way because he's kind of the forgotten member um he's the the best supporting actor in christianity who who doesn't even have one word in the new testament and yet without him you know jesus and mary were not able to do what they did and so i think in the difficult times that we're living in let's get to know saint joseph let's entrust ourselves to him let's consecrate ourselves to him not as a competition with consecration to our lady no not at all but as complementary right as as helping us to grow uh closer to jesus and mary and i really think that this consecration to saint joseph is very pleasing to our lord and to our lady because it's time to bring in saint joseph we need him right now more than ever yeah that's very true you know finally i just wanted to discuss one of the things that really struck me with all of the research that you've done on st joseph um i guess you could say he's a man of many titles few words but many many titles but if you were for instance to mention titles of saints like saint faustina we would immediately say she was the secretary of divine mercy or the apostle of divine mercy saint francis we would know as immediately the patron saint of the poor or saint jude who's venerated as patron saint of lost causes and even our founder of the marian stanislas pepcinski was canonized back in 2016 and he was given the title by the holy see as patron saint of those in mortal danger so that could apply to a lot of things he's a very helpful saint but regarding saint joseph uh can you talk to us about these many many many titles that he has and what you think st joseph has a lot of titles and some of the best ones are in the litany of saint joseph some of my favorite ones are he's called the pillar of families because a pillar you know it's a foundation it holds things up and if you don't have that things are going to crumble and unfortunately i think we're seeing that today in a lot of families you know things are crumbling and we really need the fathers to be that pillar for their wives for their children to to shore things up to make it strong i love that title and probably my favorite title though all-time favorite title is terror of demons because that's like the money title for saint joseph it's not something that sometimes you see paintings of saint joseph and you know you don't necessarily think about the terror of demons but he is and he's he is that because you know he can talk to jesus in a way that we can't he can call jesus his son i can't do that right you can't do that either we can't say a prayer to jesus that says you know jesus my my lord and my son but joseph can and so can the blessed virgin mary and that parental intercession is extraordinary because when jesus hears those petitions coming from our lady from saint joseph he hears it as a son and he's delighted you know to to comply with what what what his mother and what his father want and the devil knows that and he's terrified of it that's why the devil doesn't want us going to our lady or to saint joseph because he knows that things are going to get done when when that parental request is made to jesus and so that title terror of demons i absolutely love it yeah terror of demons based on all the letters that we get from our marian helpers it seems to be probably the most popular title with the laity as well so uh father joe do you have a favorite title for me it has to be husband of mary yeah that that's a good one as well father don thank you so much for joining us today um thank you very much for all your hard work your books your talks your efforts and bringing new men to the marian fathers as our director of vocations which isn't even something that we even talked about today thanks brother god bless you keep up the good work uh father joe as you know we have almost 30 men now studying to be priests and brothers here in the united states which is more than any other time in our history here in the u.s and more men than many dioceses so you know to me that means that god wants this message of divine mercy to be spread throughout the whole world or we wouldn't be getting these many good men yes father chris it's certainly a wonderful grace from god and also very much a consequence of father donald's work drawing men of faith men of action marian men as we like to say spiritual sons of mary immaculate yeah these are zealous men willing to give their lives for christ in his church that's what we're called to do and one such seminarian is my good friend brother jason lewis he was the co-author with me on our book after suicide there's hope for them and for you brother jason like all of us was a student of father seraphim and in fact was as close to him as anyone was and and he's here with us today to discuss an important anniversary the 90th anniversary of christ's appearance to saint faustina on february 22 1931 during which christ requested the divine mercy image to be painted and spread throughout the whole world having no talent to paint herself st faustina sought the help of her spiritual director blessed michael cepochko who arranged for a polish artist named eugene kasmarowski to paint this image and so i turned things now over to brother jason to talk to you about this extraordinary image on this very extraordinary anniversary hi i'm brother jason a marion of the conception coming from the national shrine of divine mercy happy to be with you today just want to talk a little bit about the image of divine mercy which is absolutely vital it's an icon it's a depiction it's a window into the great mystery of the divine mercy itself so when we look at the image of divine mercy jesus christ is the divine mercy that's who he is in the image itself we see that he is a priest he has his right hand elevated he's blessing us and he's taking a step forward to us god always takes the first step towards us and he looks for our response to him but it's not an aggressive step it's a step that is respectful of who we are and he's looking and knocking and wanting us to be open to receive his mercy and we also see in his hands he is bearing the print of the wounds when he was crucified upon the cross at calvary and that's what we see in the image of divine mercy as well our lord is standing he's triumphant so he's showing the resurrection coming out of the darkness triumphing over sin and then we see our lord parting open his chest and we see the rays of mercy the blood and water gushing forth the red ray is symbolic of the eucharist and the white ray we see is symbolic of baptism that takes away our original sin and also ongoing forgiveness of sin and the confessional and we know that this image is tied together to the feast of divine mercy when jesus first gave this image to saint faustina he said that he wanted her to have this image painted in the pattern after which you see the signature jesus i trust in you and then jesus goes on to say that this image is already present in your soul i desire that a feast of mercy be proclaimed first in this image to be displayed first in your convent and then for the whole world so the image of divine mercy was formed and shaped and faustina she had the divine mercy within her her soul grew into that image by all means have one of these images in your home jesus promises to bless you and to bring graces to all those who will venerate the image of divine mercy and particularly defend them at the hour of their death may god bless you all and may you receive the fullness of his mercy and grace excellent stuff brother jason is certainly taking up the torch and spreading these great means of receiving the lord's graces father chris you had mentioned that brother jason had co-authored a book with you after suicide it should be mentioned that you have a new book the first in your new explaining the faith series called understanding divine mercy can you tell us a little bit about this book how it came to be sure um last year when the pandemic hit we all had to make do with all the limitations forced upon us the limitations we didn't necessarily agree with but nonetheless had to comply with the churches were closed but people still needed to hear the gospel after all and so the marian fathers and marian helpers here on eden hill went to work thanks to the tireless work of brother mark and the singing of brother ken we started to live stream the mass and at the request of many of our marian helpers we began to offer videos uh to teach the faith to those who are without access to the sacraments in fact i began taking people back to seminary as i called it on saturday mornings with a new series called explaining the faith as a way for people to learn with me what i learned in seminary so it was a way a way that i enjoy sharing the faith of things that i was taught with others especially our marian helpers but they didn't have to pay tuition so it is a good deal this has proven to be very popular with people so god willing will keep going um so basically we did something that we've been wanting to do for years um we made masses talks and various forms of devotion available to you on the divine mercy.org website and our social media pages such as our youtube channel divine mercy and our facebook page divine mercy official and so guess what happened you and a lot of other people responded who'd never heard of the mirroring fathers before they began to watch and so the result has been father joe incredible the number of miriam helpers has exploded and we give thanks to god for him sending so many incredible new people to be part of this marian family so sorry for the long response father joe but the answer to your question is that it is um from all the positive feedback from our work online that i decided to write this book i wanted to put something basically into writing that further explained all the teachings that we were doing digitally yes well clearly there's a hunger out there for what the marians have to bring to the table pun intended with our mission of promoting devotion to divine mercy to the world yeah i agree clearly there's a hunger for rich easy to understand teaching on our catholic faith and that was one of the things i noticed a while ago that there are many great books booklets and other resources about divine mercy so i wanted to take all of that and put it into one easy to read place where people wouldn't be overwhelmed with so much material and trying to filter through it um it is a one stop shop i guess you could say for everything divine mercy and everything you need to know about divine mercy and what to do to receive the graces of divine mercy that jesus offers for instance on divine mercy sunday so because i had read so many great books and spoke to many many wise people i wanted to basically summarize it in one place as i said so that's what i did but it made us realize that we can do this not just for divine mercy but for many aspects of our catholic faith so now we took we've taken the next step we'll be publishing a series of books laying out the basic truths to our faith so please stay tuned but first we started with something that's very close to my heart as a marian as a priest and that is divine mercy so in march miriam press released this new book understanding divine mercy which is the first book in this new explaining the faith series so we please we hope that you'll get a copy right and there's nothing better to share with them than the divine mercy message and devotion so we at miriam press are super excited to offer uh divine mercy sunday special right now uh actually all the way till august the 1st where you can get a copy of this book understanding divine mercy for any donation and just a small fee for shipping we want to get it into as many hands as possible we realize not everybody can afford the full amount that's okay whatever you can afford any donation just please get the book for these incredible graces so again from now until august the 1st please visit thedivinemercy.org udm for understanding divine mercy or call us at 800-462-7426 and so you know without father seraphim we we really don't even have all this rich material we don't have in essence the diary from saint faustina that i just referenced because he was the one who got us the correct translation after it was banned without father seraphim we don't really have the image of divine mercy because it had fallen into disrepair and he helped to restore it and in a way we don't even have the feast of divine mercy sunday because he was the one instrumental in getting it on the church's universal calendar on that note let's turn back to our archives and listen in a little to father seraphim since the whole message of divine mercy through sister faustina is to prepare the world for christ's return he's got his church which is his bride has to be without spa or wrinkle and in this way we have the church prepared for the return of the lord which according to uh the revelation of fascina is in a way imminent uh but it's the sacraments that hasten the day of the lord's return as the scripture scholars point out to us [Music] that was beautiful you know father joe there's also another project that father seraphim was involved with before he passed away um wow you could say god kept him busy to the end and that was a joint venture that we did with ascension miriam press has collaborated on the development of a new divine mercy catholic bible you know we get all the time people saying father what's the best bible to get well here you go it's an incredible new resource to help you learn more about divine mercy interesting being in rome i hadn't heard about that can you tell us a little bit more about it the message of divine mercy is interwoven into the bible throughout scripture there are moments of mercy that shed light on the message of god's infinite love for us so if you remember a few years ago father joe we had a guest named timothy gray from the augustine institute and he told us that we often think of god of the old testament as this mean ogre and jesus of the new testament is this nice god the friendly one and he said no he said it was god the father of the old testament that sent his son in the first place he is a god of mercy so ascension did a masterful job at showing us god's mercy in both the old and the new testament and we always think of it only in the new so while the devotion of divine mercy was given to saint faustina and is relatively new the message of divine mercy different from the devotion now based on it but the message of divine mercy goes all the way back to the garden of adam and eve and so or the garden of eden and is the theme throughout the bible that's so true it's why we say that while the devotion to divine mercy may be optional that is you don't necessarily have to foster a devotion to divine mercy to get to heaven the message of divine mercy is not optional as it is as saint benedi pope benedict said the nucleus of the gospel if we want to get to heaven we must live the message of divine mercy and it's all there in the bible yeah that's absolutely true father and what we're done with the folks at ascension is to highlight uh these moments the divine mercy catholic bible clearly illustrates the revelation of divine mercy right within these um timely i guess you could say timeless truths of sacred scripture through the work of father seraphim and many others here of us are marian fathers working on this together this bible which is actually patterned after ascension's very successful great adventure catholic bible has i believe 175 mercy moments and 19 articles that explain how god encounters us with mercy through his word and through the sacraments so we've included all of this plus images of divine mercy saints and shrines you really don't want to miss this resource that sounds like quite an amazing publication father chris as you well know john paul ii once told the world there is nothing that man needs more than divine mercy now with this new treatment of the bible the faithful can see that god has always exhibited his mercy beginning with creation yes and father seraphim once again i know we keep bringing them up but god bless them he worked with us and informed much of the content that was added it's just further evidence i think to show how the whole church has benefited from his work that of father seraphim's and why we mirroring fathers will be forever grateful for having him as part of our community now we'd like to welcome a man who worked with father seraphim for 40 years including helping to translate saint faustina's diary into english father kaz falwik the provincial superior of the marian fathers stockbridge based province he will share with us some more examples of this incredible work and why it is more important than ever to you our viewer father kaz greetings greetings yes greetings i realize there have been a lot of things going on father chris has been filling us in the marions in stockbridge have been very busy yes it's been a very strange but the same time grace-filled year and as you know when the pandemic hit last year and churches were closed we marian priests and brothers here at the national shrine you our evangelization efforts must continue somehow so we quickly set up the infrastructure such that we are now live stream daily masses and devotions and provide special online catechesis in the form of videos and articles as father chris mentioned the response has been deeply heartening fallen away catholics have been coming back to the church through god's grace and in part through our own work known catholics are writing to us asking about divine mercy it is our honor to serve the lord in this new path set before us through media outreach continue live streaming new video programming and digital talks and now podcasts even including a podcast of your own father joe which i hope you will get into a bit yes we launched it on good friday it's called saint faustina's diary in a year by this time next year i will have read st faustina's entire diary from beginning to end in this daily podcast and each day i include a little bit of commentary as well i'm glad you brought this up father cars because yes just to be clear we've made the following podcasts available ask american where people can ask any question homilies from the national shrine of the divine mercy that we do daily from our 9 a.m mass catholic saints with father dan canberra and my explaining the faith series that we do every saturday morning live now these are all available on the following platforms but i'm gonna tell you i didn't memorize these so i gotta i gotta read them um spotify apple podcasts google podcasts podcast addict breaker player fm listen notes the podcast index overcast pocketcast castro i haven't no idea what that one is cass box and amazon music now remember too that the other video platforms that we'll be going to are roku youtube of course and facebook and instagram are already on but now we're adding mewi and parlor as well the marian fathers definitely are ready for the task of bringing christ to the world anew truly a new evangelization and a new springtime for the church anticipated by john paul ii to bring the hopeful message of divine mercy to those living in fear and doubt yes father joe what's most important to us is that we want the world to know that jesus delights in them that he loves us that nothing is greater than his mercy the greater the sin the greater the right to his mercy as our lord tells us through saint faustina it's been an amazing year to say the least and we're glad our work is helping people god's mercy is great our lord himself describes it as an ocean if it's an ocean we have a huge task ahead of us to open up the floodgates to this mercy to this ocean of mercy so it can pour unto the world that the world be filled with the hope we all desire it's been an extraordinary year but father kaz let's not let a very important thing get lost in the shuffle this is the 80th year anniversary of the marian's promotion of the divine mercy revelations given by our lord to saint faustina it is but probably the best way to address that is to first talk about it within the context of another important anniversary for us true yes the marian fathers are in the midst of an historic four-year-long celebration to mark the congregation's 350th anniversary that's right can you speak a little bit about that yes in fact this past december 8 the solemnity of the immaculate conception the patronal feast day of the marian fathers of the immaculate conception marked 350 years since our founding as you know we're the first men's community in the world to bear the title the amount of the immaculate conception which we did almost 200 years before the dogma was even declared in 1670 saint stennis pepcinski a polish priest staked his life upon the mystery of the immaculate conception made what is known as his oblatio offering himself to god and to the blessed mother and professing his intention to found the marian congregation he founded the marians as the first man's religious community ever founded in poland with the mission to promote devotion to the blessed mother in the mystery of the immaculate conception devotion to the souls in purgatory and to assist the pastors in their parish ministry they are our founding charisms and they all have to do with mercy mary immaculate was created free from any stain of original sin and how did she live her life by perfectly cooperating with god's grace and god's divine plan yes and so therefore we can place our trust in her we can place our salvation into her hands because she loves us all more than we love ourselves she loves us as god meant for us to love one another she's the perfect model and she hears our prayers the only thing standing in her way the only thing holding her back from interceding for us is that she like god usually waits to be asked god and the mother of god rarely go where they are not welcomed it is through our free will giving of ourselves that makes true love possible therefore if we want our lady to come to our aid we only need to ask for it as we marians teach in the abcs of mercy we must a ask for god's mercy yes this is the key and the sea of the abcs according to father george kosicki stands for completely trust in god's mercy or completely have that complete confidence in god's mercy and how do we show that that how do we show trust by accepting the help someone offers us when you do that that means you trust them you place confidence in them and so we accept the help god gave us in the garden after the fall which was the promise of a savior and the gift of a mother we are then trusting in these times of chaos and confusion we must use the help god offers us more than ever so we need to ask our lady to come to our aid to bring peace into our hearts and into our world and to restore all things to merciful order that is what the triumph of the american heart is all about that's a wonderful reminder of what inspired our marian founder saint stanislaus to found our marian congregation to begin with his oblazio as we call it was a total gift of self to mary especially in defense of her title the immaculate conception people always wonder how the marians were entrusted with spreading the divine mercy message and devotion after all we're not only about mary the heart of the marian charism is the mystery of the immaculate conception meaning god's saving activity in the life of mary he saved her in an extraordinary way and he saves us in an ordinary way through the sacraments and both of these ways are very much tied to the paschal mystery the death and resurrection of christ and the divine mercy novena goes from good friday to mercy sunday the octave of easter well remember the greatest act of mercy ever bestowed upon a creature is the immaculate conception so we marians have united the two most powerful spiritual weapons god offers mary and divine mercy so mary ties in with our work today of spreading divine mercy and that is what saint stanislas recognized he called all men and women to contemplate god's mercy and to proclaim that god's heart is open to all while asking for mary to assist us in our spiritual journey so we marians and all our marian helpers have been given the amazing task of bringing these two great things mary and divine mercy to the world even if it is only from their our own living rooms by joining us through live streaming and by praying with us sorry to interrupt here gentlemen but we would be remiss if we didn't mention something very important right now joining with our marion helpers in prayer just as you mentioned father joe is something that we feel so is so important and that's why many people are in fact marrying helpers so i wanted to mention that sometimes we are asked father what can i do to be one of god's foot soldiers of mercy i want to do more um well we have given everyone a big first mission and tens of thousands of you have already responded and what is that well since january we've been doing the first friday's devotion and the five first saturday's devotion these we believe are critically important because as both jesus and mary have have requested or required us not just asked us to do this to make reparation to the sacred heart of jesus and the immaculate heart of mary for the sins and the ingratitude of mankind to the sacred heart and for the blasphemies against mary's immaculate heart so if you've already started with us that is awesome but please keep coming because starting may 1st which is next month right the first of next month the feast of saint joseph um will actually be a first saturday and we'll be doing talks and praying and reparation uh regarding you know the blasphemies against our blessed mother now the next five months after that which are the number of first five saturdays that our our lady asked us to do match each of those particular blasphemies that we'll be praying against then that leads us into october because it'll finish with september and that's the anniversary of the miracle of the sun so wow um you know it has been said that the triumph of the immaculate heart of mary is going to be directly related to how many people do the five first saturdays that's true so please absolutely see this as a clearing call if we can get literally hundreds of thousands of people to do this we marian helpers can literally help usher in the triumph of the immaculate heart of mary i am not just wishful thinking here this is real and it is something that we need your help so please join us every first friday and every first saturday yes that is even part of our constitutions father chris so everyone please join us for that our founder stanislas knew the importance of mary and turning to her in times of need so let's do this together and bring many graces to a world in need now speaking of saint-stenosaurs i wanted to say that soon we'll be publishing in english the selected works of saint stannis popchinsky he has the most tender approach to sinners for instance he calls mary the hook like a fishhook for the seraphim love that turn of phrase and father chris a fisherman can appreciate it as well for saint stanislas mary is the hook that catches sinners to come and receives god's mercy again it is all about mary and divine mercy and follice i know that other preachers in saint stanislaus's time preached of fire and brimstone but in our founders writings he speaks of mary's utmost tenderness to get sinners back yes for the marians our founders message was one that presaged the divine mercy revelations of saint faustina which the marians have promulgated since 1941 for 80 years and yes at the time when most preachers dwelt on the wrathful god and the fate of the unfaithful saint stanislaus predominantly focus on the mercy of god and the fate of the faithful so it is prophetic that we in our marian helpers were called to be such a huge part of this divine mercy message and devotion in our marian helper magazine they called it a catechetical corrective yes and one that remains at the heart of the marian's apostolic work today if i may read one such excerpt of his writings in words that were later echoed in saints faustina's revelation saint stanislas wrote and i quote here the most merciful savior of the world cares for the salvation of all people and not only does he have an in consideration the happiness of the just but also even and mainly of the sinners known as the defender of the oppressed and patron of those in mortal danger saint stennis urged us to and i quote here learn to immerse with great trust all our imperfections in the immense abyss of divine mercy that gives us hope father father kaz when we read his works you were definitely right that it's no wonder god chose our little congregation to spread the divine mercy revelations as given to saint faustina back in the 1930s and as you know god doesn't choose those who you would expect you know my favorite example i always use is saint paul you know people always think that and you know we wouldn't have a church really today without saint paul he's that important but many think he was this big hulking figure uh with lightning bolts and uh you know hulking sighs and ready to crush anybody that stood against the gospel or against christ actually you know who saint paul was we know from the apocryphal writings saint paul was ball headed bowlegged hooked nose and four foot eight so wow god can use anyone even including our religious community and um or even the most insignificant person at home uh so in fact when he does that gives him even more greater glory so always realize that we play a part and god wants us to play a part well yes it's a remarkable and reaffirming fact that the central theme of saint stanislaw's ministry that god's greatest attribute is mercy reoccurs later in the divine mercy revelations to saint faustina this is true father seraphim would say that god chose the marian fathers as the official promoters of divine mercy because our lord wanted this extraordinary message and devotion to be under the mantle of mary immaculate so there you have it he turned to the marian fathers of the immaculate conception so father cause in the history of the marians between our founders st stanislaus and our dearly departed father seraphim um there have been many many key figures that have helped bring us to where we are uh today you know this but i want to share with the the viewers that since we're celebrating the 350th anniversary of our congregation um why don't i toss them the names your way i know you know them all and maybe you could give us a brief description okay okay i like this go ahead shoot okay uh kashmir vashinsky vulnerable servant of god kasmir vashinsky he was born in poland in 1700s the year before our founder saint stannis has died from the very beginning of his religious life he distinguished himself in his zeal for evangelical perfection arden devotion to the mystery of the ibaka conception and active care for those suffering injustice and and he also worked for the beatification of the marian founder way back then didn't he father cause oh yes he did indeed and he helped the marians grow in notoriety number and geographic reach he made us establish houses in places like lithuania and other places in 1753 he went to portugal and founded the first marian monastery in that country in basamal he died there in 1755 his reputation for sanctity has endured for 200 years especially in portugal i remember reading that even today the portuguese catholics still call him santo polacco which is the holy pope the polish priest yes okay here's a favorite of mine blessed george blessed george matulitas also known as matulevic this month we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of blessed george not many people in the church have heard of blessed george but i can tell you that without him the marian fathers will probably not exist today blessed george secretly entered the marians at a time when the azares government of russia had banned religious orders from accepting new vocations yeah we were taught in seminary how the marians were actually down to a single one member yes and it was blessed george who set out to restore the congregation along the way blessed george believed it shouldn't be up to just the consecrated religious to bring the gospel to the world he foresaw the laity playing a greater role in evangelization so he established in seed for what we now know today as the association of marian harpers yeah and let me read one of my favorite uh blessed george quotes um he said we must strive to gather and organize about us people of good will we must train and prepare them for work then together with them and through them we must bring christ into all things in all places renew and revivify all things in christ gain all for christ attract all for christ yes blessed george saw the important role of yule our marian helpers watching from home he was known as the marian renovator he spent his whole life for christ pray that he might be god's dishrag used by the lord to clean his church and afterward thrown away when his mission was completed blessed george founded the present day association of marian hoppers when he established the marian father's auxiliaries back in 1920s these were chapters or groups of the lay faithful attached to parishes in the chicago area and father kaz this was very much in keeping with our founders efforts to develop a lay movement that would grow in their faith you know based on our marian's charism absolutely true these people supported the marians through their prayers apostolic works and financial assistance in turn the people were remembered in the masses prayers and good works of all the marian priests and brothers by 1926 there were more than 20 chapters of auxiliaries in the united states if you're a long-time marian helper this kind of spiritual benefit society may sound familiar only now it is no longer limited to particular parishes that's because father walter palczynski used the marian father's auxiliaries as his model when he formed the president-day association of marion helpers here in stockbridge in 1944. uh wait father kaz um we're jumping ahead we're not ready for father walter palczynski yet um we still have the famous father joseph yarjambowski to go yes father joseph yazzamowski a marian priest born in 1897 and died in 1964. he was a giant in getting saint faustina's work out to the world in 1941 hardly three years after the death of sister faustina he brought the divine mercy devotion to the united states from poland it's interesting to note that father george zimbawski had at first been skeptical about the great graces received by those who entrusted themselves to divine mercy as well true but in february of 1941 with world to raging in europe he vowed that if he were able to safely reach his fellow marians in america he would spend the rest of his life spreading the divine mercy message of devotion in fact i recently came across in our archives the minutes of a meeting house minutes in washington dc in which it's recorded how the marians wired money to father joseph to make his trip to the united states possible before his departure father michael cepachko saint faustina's spiritual director gave father azimbowski materials on divine mercy that he prepared with these materials and seemingly insurmountable obstacles father yazimovsky set out for the journey well in 1940 a number of priests and seminarians told a member of my own community father joseph jarzynbovsky about the work of father cepachko they related to him that cepachko had been spreading the devotion to divine mercy all over the country so father yarjabski went to meet him now during their meeting sapachiko learned of yarjabski's plans to make the perilous journey from poland to his religious house in washington d.c sapocho then told yarzabski about the divine mercy message and devotion and gave him several documents regarding it now while father yarjabski was skeptical of any private revelations not yet approved by the church he was deeply moved by what he heard then father cepachko gave him some final instructions when you arrive in the states notify the bishops and spread the message now thinking of the dangerous journey ahead of him father yarjabski replied if i arrive safely i will count it as a miracle and i will spread this message in devotion till the end of my life now father yarzubovsky knew he needed a miracle to get to the united states because for one thing he didn't have the appropriate russian visas and permits to travel and on top of that his american visa had already expired but filled with trust and divine mercy he started his trip he traveled by train across russia through siberia and to the port city of vladivostok where he hoped to take a boat to japan unfortunately on every train he encountered two members of russia's secret police they would question father yarjabski about his travel papers especially since he didn't have a valid japanese transit visa well trusting that jesus the divine mercy would help him father yarjabski told them that the necessary documents would be waiting for him at a later train stop fortunately they believed him and allowed him to continue on when father yarjabski got to the last stop in vladivostok he applied for a japanese visa now if his request was denied there would be no getting on the boat to america and the big problem was that in order to get the japanese transit visa he had to present his expired american visa so well aware of his predicament father yarzubovsky prayed to the merciful jesus and gave the consulate his american visa without the sheet containing the expiration date thankfully the consulate didn't seem to notice and they gave him the necessary travel documents relieved father yarzubowski began to board the ship for japan but as he did he realized that the customs agents were confiscating crosses and books so again he prayed to jesus to save his divine mercy materials meanwhile one of the customs agents took father's bravery out of a bag began to look through it he wasn't sure what to make of it but found the prayer cards charming and let it all go in fact he marked that bag with chalk and then without bothering to look inside he approved the second bag as well and that was the bag with the divine mercy materials now the ship to japan had accommodations for only 80 people that there were more than 500 people on board my father yarjabaski didn't seem to mind he was on his way to freedom and so father kaz after this extraordinary journey that he had from lithuania then across russia he was going uh east uh through siberia and then actually over to japan he arrived on american soil um right before world war ii in may 1941 so then true to his vow he began to promote this message and devotion with the help as usual god always uses wonderful nuns these were the felician sisters in connecticut and in michigan as well yes it is no surprise that father joseph's fellow marion soon became intensely involved as well okay we're we're almost here father um almost done father julian kroshowski i'm sure i pronounced that correctly who's largely unknown but shouldn't be father julian was really one of those who contributed greatly to the divine mercy devotion being spread all over the world julian ruschowski a very difficult name to pronounce but was born in 1912 and died in 1976. father julian was one of those who contributed greatly to the spread of the divine mercy message all over the world he completed his doctoral studies in law in 1938 during the second war he was active in the independence movement he was arrested by the gestapo and taken to a notorious pavia prison in warsaw where many were tortured to death or executed he miraculously escaped from this notorious prison by an unusual event he asked the prison guard to permit him to return to his cell to retrieve an item and the guard let him do it in his cell he had hidden a little divine mercy image given to him by his mother which he was unable to take with him that the gestapo guard somehow forgot about him in the meantime the other prisoners were loaded into trucks and driven away to the concentration camp for extermination he returned saw the trucks leaving guards returning to their headquarters he saw the gate still open and miraculously not seen by the watchtower guards he was able to escape divine mercy image protected him and saved him okay then we have blessed george and blessed anthony father george crusher and father anthony leschevich they are our two world war ii martyrs several other candidates are still waiting for beatification both anthony and george ministered in a town called roshitsa bialaros since 1942. father anthony had summoned george to help him in his pastoral work as world war ii intensified the two priests found themselves together serving god in very difficult environment their crucible came in february 1943 the nazis stormed into roshita and his surrounding villages on an extermination mission on account of underground resistance activities yeah to kill anyone questionable that's that seems to be the way they always did it tragically yes that's true the two priests knew their people loved them they understood what the gestapo intended to do they knew that if they stayed with the people they would die they chose to stay with the people so that they wouldn't lose hope so that the fear would not take over them and fall into despair the two priests celebrated masses heard confessions and administered the sacraments to as many people as possible during the night on february 1943 father anthony stayed with his flock as the nazis forcibly led the people to an empty barn they poured fuel in a barn and then tossed a grenade into it everyone inside including father anthony was burned alive the next day a similar scene unfolded with father george and the people to whom he was ministering i have to add here one more element when they were looking to the first barn everybody was burned completely they were all just ashes but there's one element that remained and as the hand of father anthony holding a rosary that was the only thing that was not burned this was spoken to us by the sisters who were witnesses wow they they surrendered their lives without spearing anything and what an incredible witness so um again wow father kaz you know one more thing um that we need to do and now we are ready and that's father walter palczynski or father pal as he was affectionately called like father seraphim he was born in adams massachusetts close to the shrine here father powell was a torchbearer of the divine mercy father caz i know you'll agree it is no exaggeration to say that because of father pell millions of people around the world have come to know the divine mercy message and mary immaculate through our congregation's publishing apostolate yes in 1944 father pal established what was then the mercy of god apostolate in stockbridge and he founded the marian helper center a modern religious publishing house that has become the international center for divine mercy message and devotion which now prints more than 50 million pieces of spiritual resources each year in the form of prayer cards pamphlets books newsletters and magazines and here's something fascinating father seraphim as god would have it died on the feast of our lady of lords and of course it was our lady of lords who in 1858 appeared to saint bernadette and identified herself as the immaculate conception so father cash you know where i'm going with this when was it again that father pal died well there are two days when our lady in the mystery of the immaculate conception is celebrated the solemnity of the immaculate conception on december 8 and the feast of our lady of lords on february 11th father seraphim died this past year on the feast of our lady of lords and father pal died in the year 2000 on the solemnity of the immaculate conception it's truly amazing it shows that our lady is at work both men had always prayed for a holy death and both were taken on our lady's major feast days the blessed virgin mary came to take her spiritual sons home so we now pray for both of them that god had mercy on their souls and allows them to enter into eternal life with him and speaking of prayers that is one of the most important things that we do at the marian helper center which is to pray for you and with you personally on our prayer line we receive thousands of calls each month in this ministry a ministry that brings hope to many let's take a look when i pick up the phone the person on the other end is probably the most important person at that moment and they're reaching out they're lonely and there's nobody else morning thank you for calling divine mercy for a line how may i pray with you i like being an intercessor and it's pretty much for the same reason that i'm a brother i i always wanted to be a helper and i've always been felt that feeling of calling to intercede for people and this famous uh picture of saint francis was jesus on the cross with one hand down to francis and francis has one hand up to jesus and that's the francis that i hope to be linda hi it's nice to hear from you how did you make out with your son beautiful okay hey we've got thanksgiving prayers coming they'll continue how many times i tell people just be open to his grace hang on to the holy spirit's tail feathers and just go and if you go with that total surrender to divine providence the more you lean on the more it does no matter how upside down our world gets god is still in control we had a lady call us she was in the waiting room her son had cancer in both lungs and we said that we would pray he went in for surgery at exactly three o'clock at exactly the time that she pulled out her rosary beads and started praying the chaplain the surgeon looked at the light board saw these two lungs filled with cancer and then when he cut the boy open there was none and he said we have the wrong person his lungs are better than mine you stitch him up i'm gonna tell this mother mary is the intercessor she bestows all grace she should take all of our petitions so praying to jesus through mary she is the pinnacle of intercessory prayer beautiful yes yes we do how about your first name okay hi i'm brother paul i'll be happy to pray with you you don't approach mary your mother as you you would a as an adult to approach her as a a child and you run to her and she wrote her arms just automatically go out to embrace you okay it's hard out there it's tough but he gave you everything you need okay let me play the memory [Music] yeah okay great remember the most gracious virgin mary that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection before thy help or sought their intercession was left unaided inspired by this confidence we fly into thee o virgin of virgins our mother to thee do we come before thee we stand sinful and sorrowful oh mother of the word incarnate despise not our petitions but in thy mercy hear and answer us amen you're welcome you're very very welcome angels surround you keep you safe god bless you yes for example we pray for all of our marian helpers and their loved ones who have been affected by the virus as we mentioned we are praying for father seraphim but we also are praying for father walter gurgle who was another one of our marian priests we lost this past year due to covid but we have confident hope that they are both in heaven because jesus promised that the soul that spreads divine mercy he will personally defend as his own at the moment of their death and he will be a merciful savior for them rather than a just judge yeah both of these priests were definitely spreaders of divine mercy that's for sure and they were two of the reasons why we mentioned earlier that the spread of the divine mercy message and devotion has been the largest grassroots movement in the history of the church now i know there are a lot of historical materials that document all this spreading of this message father kaz in fact you even made a video that explores some of them so why don't we take a look at that now in 1970s for the julian as we mentioned to him as we mentioned him before father julian published a goal called the book devotion to divine mercy in our day and he gives the whole summary of both the message as well as all the activities of the marians all the way to 1973. fantastic work now this work was sent to cardinal vuittilla in krakow with a cover letter and i would like to reach to you this is the original letter there was a response given to us by cardinal vuitton in 1975 it's 1975. i'd love to read you the letter the content of the letter because it's quite interesting and this is in english translation and he says dear father provincial may god reward you for the work titled devotion to divine mercy in our day this work is certainly a contribution to the great history that god himself wrote with the inspired word and facts in the history of mankind although the matter of the image and the name that bass expresses the revelation of the servant of god faustina kovalska remains in the background of our concern we consider it the matter of establishing the feast most more important which would certainly contribute to the renewal of the devotion and spiritual rebirth not only in our nation but also in other countries that being said if necessary we will not fail to take advantage of the comments sent to us by you dear father provincial isn't that interesting in 1975 john paul's wish and desire was that the feast of divine mercy be established and as we know 25 years later he was able to accomplish this task and it was a grasp of movement it was established 25 years ago ago and and we know that that it is an extraordinary beauty and extraordinary grace for the people around the world because on that mercy is remember god promises the fullness of forgiveness of sin and consequences of sin of the punishments due to sin for everyone who asks who goes to holy communion who receives the lord in a state of grace this was the letter that is so important that john paul wrote to us in 1975 and he told us let us keep hope alive because god will provide this great work on behalf of god for humanity isn't that interesting i just wanted to add here when i was translating that uh letter from cardinal vito vittewa to us and i as i usually do i enjoy doing the translation so i first tried to have two two tables one in the original language and the other one the translations i'm making and i did it and i saved it last night and this morning i tried to open up and to print it and all of a sudden very unusual thing happened even though i never took the picture of the original letter that picture was in the background and i couldn't read the translation because the original letter was there i have no idea how it happened and you know things like that have happened in my life where all of a sudden things like you know digital versions do not indicate what's there or something extra shows up and perhaps maybe maybe who knows uh maybe his father seraphim who who perhaps wanted to kind of show me you know that he cares for us and that's how important that is that the original should be there and so that's why i made the copy of the original letter to i brought it here because i don't even know how it got there i never took a picture of it and word document just doesn't all of a sudden bring that that that original document so i have no idea but i'm grateful to god and i am happy because you know perhaps the lord wanted me through father sarfan's intervention he wanted me to to show you the original letter from cardinal futilla the future john paul ii yes the great father seraphim was a major part of this a man who touched the lives of so many people as we get ready for holy mass let's spend a little more time remembering father seraphim so what do you think the lord is really asking us to do in this devotion father i believe what our lord is really asking is that we concentrate on his great love that he did not hesitate to give his life for us and this will prompt us to respond to his love to us and i think we have to keep in mind what the real meaning of devotion is it's not just pious practice devotion means that you are given with your whole life to someone for what he means to you and this is what we must understand here dear friends may the blessing almighty god and his mercy be upon you through his grace and his love for humankind at all times now and always and forever and ever in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen may the souls of father walter and father seraphim rest in peace amen thank you father cass as we wrap up we must remember really though the reason we are here which is to receive these incredible graces that jesus promises us on this one day only divine mercy sunday so here's what you need to do when we are done here sometime before mass before holy communion if you haven't been to confession make an act of contrition just telling god that you're sorry you can be in your own prayer or act of contrition that you know that you're sorry for your sins with the intent to go back to the sacrament when next abel and if you haven't received holy communion yet prepare to make an act of spiritual communion which don't worry we'll lead you in that prayer is to be able to ask god to receive him like you did receive physically the sacrament so just do that for now and then after mass i'm going to lead everyone in a formal prayer that asks god to fulfill his promise of this day we will help you with everything you need to know so please stay tuned folks we're so happy you've joined us for this special divine mercy sunday broadcast we now welcome you to join the marian fathers for holy mass we're so pleased today to have as our main celebrant our new bishop in the diocese of springfield massachusetts the most reverent william byrne

Channel: Divine Mercy

Views: 17,950

Keywords: Divine Mercy, Divine, Mercy, Divine Mercy Official, Shrine of Divine Mercy, National Shrine of Divine Mercy, Shrine, Mass, Holy Mass, Mass today, Holy Mass today, Rosary, Holy Rosary, Divine Mercy Rosary, Rosary today, Chaplet, Divine Mercy Chaplet, Chaplet of Divine Mercy, Chaplet today, Catholic, God, Jesus, Christ, Mary, Mother of God, St. Faustina, Faustina, Marian, Marians, Immaculate Conception, priest, catholic teaching, spiritual, eternity, live, life, grace, pray, prays, praying, spirituality

Id: u1j83KgdeiQ

Length: 89min 29sec (5369 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 11 2021