Sunday Night Prime - Divine Mercy - Fr. Groeschel with Fr. Michalenko, MIC - 03-20-2011

welcome to Sunday night prime and we're always happy to hear you and be one of us in our meeting and this evening we have a very very pleasant and friendly and good visitor tonight I want you to get to know our visitor tonight he's an outstanding priest father Seraphin Nick elenco father father is a member of the Marian's of the Immaculate Virgin virgin very very immaculate and also he is very very active and leading in the Divine Mercy devotion and he can tell us a good deal about it many of our lost listeners are involved in divine mercy and a number of our non Catholic friends listen some of them have asked me about what is this new influence on Divine Mercy we believe the Divine Mercy for centuries for millennia why suddenly divine mercy so there is a fascinating story that comes out right before the Second World War and I'd like to first of all since we're getting ready for the Divine Mercy conference here in New York which is going to be March 26 at Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx tell me Father tell our audience what about Divine Mercy during the revelations through Sister Faustina Kowalska nun in Poland our Lord wants the revival of something that he says already exists one day the sister after she finished her initial work went into the chapel and to say a prayer to offer to the Lord all her prayers mortification sufferings of that day so that the Holy Father would approve the feast that he is asking for but then she said Lord tell me one more thing they tell me that such a feast already exists so why should I talk about it and the Lord immediately and who knows anything about it even those who should know about it and teach about it don't know about it therefore I want the image venerated on that day so that everyone would come to know my mercy and this of course was after he had revealed himself in a vision to Sister Faustina with his hand lifted up and blessing and the other moving aside his robe from which to great race come forth one red and the other pale as he explained later symbolizing the blood and water that flowed from his side when his heart was pierced on the cross after his death well now we have a number of people watching here our program first of all we have Catholics and Orthodox Catholic Orthodox and Divine Mercy fits in very beautifully for both of our ch's but also the idea of private revelation a person receives a visit of their vision from a divine person from Christ from Mary this is not familiar with Protestants however most Protestants do know about Our Lady of Lourdes how the little peasant girl Bernadette saw the Virgin Mary standing in the grotto and many have heard Our Lady of Fatima three little children humble peasant children saw the Virgin Mary and they didn't know who he was who she was emphatic Bernadette didn't know she was talking to either here we have a sister a nun and it was in the 1930s yes she was a very humble devout humble sister kind of a peasant girl herself what happened well the Lord prepared her even from her tender age she was quite familiar with the Lord she even said at 5:00 that she had a dream where she was walking in paradise of the Blessed Mother among beautiful flowers so they didn't make much of it than maybe just a dreams of a little girl but when she was seven already as she writes in her diary at a service in church during the exposition of the Most Blessed Sacrament she gave her heart to the Lord and made a little room there that whenever she could not come to the church she could converse with him there so she had experiences and there was about 14 when she couldn't go to school anymore because the schools just opened after the first world war broke out mm-hmm and the older children had to leave because there wasn't enough room for the others she was allowed to go to help a family as a housemaid and there she also had revelations where one day she yelled up fire fire because she worked for someone who owned a bakery everybody ran out to see the fire there was none and so they called her sister to see if she's getting sick or something and she says no I'm like going mad I'll leave this place I must enter a convent and so when she went back home and asked her parents for permission to enter they had the excuse they didn't have enough money for a dowry which was an amount of money that was kept just in case the candidate to the community would not stay and she would have something to leave with her start a new life and she says oh no he told me that he's going to take care of me and she just understood it was Jesus who told her that he wanted it to go to the convent because he was preparing these things or her for these things and she didn't know what lay ahead until one day when she was at a dance with her sister the Lord appeared to her all bleeding and he said how long am I going to wait for you how long are you gonna be putting me off and so she took off and stopped at the nearest church was a Cathedral in the city of wood on the way who home to where she worked and she just frustrated and from the best of Sacre says Lord what would you have me do and he just told her go to Warsaw there you'll enter a convent and immediately she got up went to the house to settle things she had to tell the lady precisely and that day whether she was going to stay on or leave and she asked her uncle who lived there to bring some of the stuff for her parents and to say goodbye to them and so and she brought him a little bit of whiskey and cookies whisky whisky and she says I just got you a little so you don't get drunk now take me to the train station and that's she left that night and the next morning she found the closest church and while the masses are being said the voice told her to go to the priest that was sold just celebrated a particular mass and that he will help you and he direct her to a place where she stayed for a whole year before she was able to enter a convent and so the Lord prepared her mystically she went through a purification period it's called the dark nights and her the sister in charge of her said you came out of this quick because you were obedient and then she felt like a totally new person and totally a new reborn person so to speak and she then listened to the Lord's implications or her invitations to what he was asking so he asked first of all that she paint an image of him as she as he appeared to her with the signature Jesus I trust in you and then later on he gave her the task of getting a feast established in the church in honor of the divine mercy now that didn't have to do with the attribute of God but Jesus as the divine mercy incarnate and so it's supposed to be his feast and he the day he chose for it is the octave day of Easter the Sunday after Easter and I always wondered why he chose that particular day and I spent many years researching what could be the purpose of it and I got the best clue from a book the Bible in the liturgy by father Jean Daniel knew who was later declared a cardinal and he offered about three chapters on that theme of the octave and evidently the the true meaning of the octave was not alive in the church in fact after Vatican 2 they got rid of all of them except to Easter and Christmas and what we learned from father Daniel is that in the Eastern Church particularly from gregory of nazianzus he gave a special sermon on that day one year and all the students of the fathers are surprised that he said that easter sunday is a wonderful day but the sunday after easter is more wonderful and the reason he says it points to the other life he says easter is the boundary between death in life but the octave day of Easter points to the future life and that is the purpose and so I found a thing in st. Thomas Aquinas who are he after Aristotle he says everything that exists has two perfections the first one is that the thing is in what it is in its integrity but the second perfection is what is that thing existing for like a plan of a house for the house to be built an instrument for the music to be played and certainly the purpose for it is greater than the instrument or the thing itself but it could not exist without it so to the future life could not be without the resurrection and therefore he considers it more wonderful well the Divine Mercy itself then if been woven in to the whole revelation of Christ Oh Eve not that there from from Genesis to Revelation yes the mercy of God is there continuously now we celebrate the mercy of God in every mass lord have mercy Christ and mercy Kirra la son Christe Eleison and we have beautiful titles our lady Lady of Mercy mother of Mercy mater misericordiae Misericordia is Grace in Latin and since the middle or the beginning not really over the 20th century particularly after the 30s there's been an increased constant interest in the Divine Mercy in my own mind I'd like to hear your this on this father that st. Faustina was this young devout pious there all that was a sister seeing these visions what was happening Germany dwell the persecution of the Jewish people and it was interesting that the last family that Faustina worked for was Jewish and they had many Jewish friends visiting in that house while she was working there and one of them became a Franciscan nun who worked with the blind in Warsaw and you were yes but thanks evidently to Faustina's prayers or whatever she became a Catholic later on and one day after the war she was writing in the tram in Warsaw and she met the lady at whose house she used to be a guest and she says did you always have just that one young girl working for you she is no I had a whole pile of them but she was the best one and we were so sorry that after years she went to the convent and everybody was in mourning in the house that she left I says well what was her name and she says Helena kowalska and the nun just jumped he says are you sure she's yeah she's let's get off and she says what's the matter and the sister answered all over the churches is a blackguard anybody who knew sister faustina should come and give deposition of what they know about her because her causes are for beatification breath so she said what a tremendous influence just by her working in that home she had upon the whole village and one of the major things there she had a great devotion the beste sacrum and while she was working she used to sing the special him in under the Blessed Sacrament so that the whole family knew it by heart and they were Jewish and they were Jewish well the gentleman asked the father to baptize them all but he was spared the Holocaust thank God well father we'll be back in just a break but we're moving into a very dramatic story here with the Nazis in the background we'll be back in two minutes well here we are father talking about here we those terrible days of the 1930s now you and I are old enough that as youngsters we heard about Hitler at least I'm old enough that I would remember by coming into the house one day and this man was talking on the radio it's a high Lord falsetto voice in German I didn't know what language it was and I said to my father who is this strange sound he says it's a man named Hitler and that was 1938 and the world was cast into hell and that's right at the time of st. Faustina's death righted right before Hitler invaded Poland September the 1st September of 1939 and then that sees Hitler said a slob enslaving the slobs are slaves and he treated all the Papa and Polish people and the Slovak people terribly and extremely terribly cruel to the Jews and especially it's a very large community of Jewish people that lived in Poland why is growing up as a boy there were many Polish Jews and German Jews in New York at that time who had come fled from being before Hitler so it was a terrible time a time of cruelty and a time of mercy actually the nuts is imprisoned thousands of Catholic priests sure many of them died in the camps tour now they wanted to eradicate anybody who would promote history or the faith and one of our priests who was a foremost poet at the time managed to escape from Warsaw towards Vilnius which was then still a within Poland and it was at that time that he met sister Faustina's confessor who found out that he had intentions to go to the United States and so he came to him where they treat us that he would want the priest to take to the United States to have bishops there and Catholic universities appeal to Rome to Institute the Feast of the Divine Mercy environment and so the father says well I don't accept devotions that were not approved by the church and here Faustina was just dead two years and he said when you get to your confreres please present these and through marvelous events the father found himself in Moscow where there was money waiting for him that the father sent from Washington then he passed by a rail all through Siberia to Vladivostok and it was a Jewish lawyer who pounded the doors of the Japanese Consulate to get him a visa to get him to Japan because the offices are already closed but he persists him until they hope and they gave it to him and that's how he was able to go to Japan he still was able to give a retreat to the Franciscans who were in that monastery in Nagasaki that was built by the mr. Meighan Colby all over the other side of the hill that survived and from there he came to Seattle by boat before Pearl Harbor in May and as soon as he reached the conference he told him the whole story and he learned from the Confessor and now from 15 oh yes he wasn't a fan of course and the next year they had a promoter from the Archbishop of Baltimore Washington and that's when we started hardly two and a half years after Faustina died to spread the message and I know I heard in Buffalo that way up in the 1940s in a Polish Church there was the Divine Mercy image painted on the wall well my hometown parish was the first in the Western Hemisphere to publicly have an image of divine mercy enthroned in the church where was that for this was Adams Massachusetts Adams method again in the church in honor st. Stanislaus Koska where Faustina went to the cathedral under that title where the Lord told her to go to war son and it's interesting mixed into this of the Jews you know who were treated so horribly in Poland well I got to meet her a rabbi there was a survivor of Auschwitz in Connecticut and I told him I'm looking up for information on the octave what can you tell me about that in the Jewish tradition and he wrote out the word Shimon I believe it is that's number eight but it has the root of the word for oil and that's for the Greek is La Sun true which is never suspect so there is connection isn't that fascinating well it's wonderful now that we learn of the divine mercy Divine Mercy Sunday and we have a divided mercy Pope tell them about our - we do you know we have a divine mercy bulb I think we have two divine mercy Pope's because the present Holy Father says he accepts the Magisterium and the legacy left to him by his venerable predecessor and he he made a statement that it was in 2006 during a on the Feast of the Divine Mercy where he said the he used the word cult but it means the worship of divine mercy is not a second-rate devotion but an integral dimension of a Christians life in prayer and so he totally accepts what the Holy Father handed down to the church he call his Magisterium and the main point of his pontificate and of course and he always brings up the fact that and the Lord arranged that on the vigil of that feast that he should have died but the people up in Japan Philippine Islands New Zealand say it was already mercy suddenly when he passed away this is Pope John Paul the second night on Divine Mercy Sunday how much comes together on this how beautifully it comes and you know how much the word Divine Mercy could bring the world together that idea well people have nothing to do with Christianity or the word West but Buddhist people Hindu people they would understand divine mercy the God is merciful to us st. Thomas Aquinas said the word misery cordia's the heart going out to misery that's what I mean then he says the greatest misery is not to be therefore when the Holy Trinity which is love itself wanted someone upon whom to pour out all its goodness it decided to create and so creation is the first act of divine mercy but then when the crown of creation fell the second even greater act of mercy is Redemption and then there's going to be a third stage and that is when God unites all his people to himself in the eternal life no one deserves that no one can even expect it and that is the highest form of mercy that is God and that is open to humanity that will respond in trust to the Lord unfortunately it's not a difficult theological or spiritual principle to appreciate but as john paul ii wrote in his second cyclical this great encyclical under divine mercy he points out that people are reluctant to even speak the word for others it's a weakness and yet it is the greater strength even Shakespeare saw that we're at the end of Portia speech in the Merchant of Venice it was and earthly monarchs are likened to God when mercy seasons justice and so he had the real theology in in that plane and hammered to it mercy what comes down alike no that's that's from the merchant that one of the man yes the quality of Mercy is not strained that's right cause this is a gentle rain from heaven upon the place me and it's twice blessed him who gives it to me takes now I would think interesting you know through television radio the other religions of the world of the of the east you know huge numbers a Buddhist and Hindu Zoroastrians you know there they hear about Christianity often the Christians haven't behaved very nicely by any means or when they think of the Europe they think of Christianity had nothing to do with Christianity people like Hitler and Stalin at all nothing to do with Christianity but to the people of the East it's a long one big thing but when they hear mercy how beauty and of course you and I grew up with that very beautiful prayer written by the monk who was crippled he was born with a severe deformity and he was blind Herman of rye canal hail holy Queen Mother of mercy he wrote that beautiful hymn to solve a Regina monter misericordia and that was but we don't know the background of that beautiful beautiful prayer but actually the prayer soup tone precedium yes the the original Greek of that prayer is translated we we hasten to your mercy that's right Most Holy Mother and that is the oldest prayer that's the oldest extant sub to embracing him under thy tender mercies and of attorney Mary for have requested and now when I think many of the people who watch our program are not Catholic many are Protestant many are Orthodox many are Jewish be surprised how many Jewish people's I what are you watching our program for Isis you're Jewish just nothing worthwhile I'll accept if that's what they'll say about EWTN and how is it that it brings us together there's an interesting thing that I found in my research about the active I found this book celebrating Jewish holidays and they spoke about different groups of Jews celebrating Hanukkah in different ways and in a special note one of the contributors pointed out that what the Jewish writings point out is that various rituals disappear when they don't have an impact and a contemporary impact but he says the Jews had the proper sense to keep those rituals on the books because one day they probably won't be relevant and people would revive them again so I think this is what happened because sister faustina prophesied that that worked that the Lord gave her confessor but one day PS thought totally undone but that then there it would come back into grace as a great splendor in the church even though it was dormant for a long time yes so it miss me that there was such a feast and the Lord says there is such a feast and he wants it revived because of his implications of preparing the world for his coming and for his gathering of his people to himself well we have beautiful messages on divine mercy and I'm very grateful to you Father for bringing them to us and we'll be back now back to our subject father and we're talking about the divine mercy conferences many of you will be aware that there have been conferences and was one in Rome and that was a I attended that that was very beautiful but the Archbishop of Vienna where have been several in this country where are they now well the one the major one in our in the state's was last year in Washington DC but they're going on even in Asia and Oceania and we have a write-up on our the television we have the pictures about our new one that's coming March 26 very shortly and we didn't like to invite you to come to that one if you're in the metropolitan area where do you go to all the conference's I try to get as many as I'm invited to mm-hmm I just came back from a circuit of conferences in Minnesota California and Florida and in San Diego there were only about 365 people who registered for the conference there but on the day 800 came uh-huh and almost all of these places that have some of them have any conferences for 10 and 15 years more and more people are coming now yeah so there must be something that the people feel attracted by the message of mercy as they want to go deeper into the matter the the one is coming up now March 26 very shortly at Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx you're going to be there of course and father Bernhard was one of the friars of our community and I will be talking and also for the Pavone Monsignor la santé father Roche was contraire of yours and Lila Rose do you know Lila no I don't think better she's been a very interesting speaker on Divine Mercy very very interesting so we'll be there and Bishop Holley Bishop Martin Holley auxiliary bishop of Washington it will be saying the mass and our own Bishop Walsh he righted where were broadcasting from the place where Bishop Walsh is the director here of the seminary Bishop Gerald Walsh so if you're in the New York talk Margaret Maher in the New York metropolitan area come on out on March 26 and if you're not in New York you can travel no father you've been doing this how many years since I entered the community of the Marius immigrants was in 1947 1947 isn't that marvelous in 1947 I graduated from Grammar School so you're a little bit older than I am and and you were bringing the message every place well it was stopped for 20 years you know just as Faustina predicted it would there were some misgivings about things that were quoted that were quoted that she has said where which were not true but there was no published diary at the time and it was difficult to get any information from Poland because the Communists were very strict about documents going back and forth with Rome I think and so the it took 20 years before the second part of her prophecy came true that it would become a new splendor in the church and that of course came with the introduction of the image of the Rhine mercy and and the Holy Father establishing the feast this is Pope John Paul the second in many ways is the pump of divine mercy yes definitely and I think what he was in Poland when he was in Cracow that's when he became very aware of the divine mercy because it was in his diocese right well while he under the Nazi occupation as a young man he worked in a quarry for some chemical company and that's where he was preparing in a clandestine seminary for the priesthood and when in 2002 he dedicated the Basilica of the Divine Mercy close to Sister Faustina stoom after Holy Communion he mused and he said who would have thought that this young man in wooden shoes he says all we could wear during the war after work who would come to the chapel there to pray where the sisters were would one day dedicate this Basilica and the hill isn't that beautiful and on the hill overlooking the quarry was the cemetery resistive our scene was married and now that quarry is going to become a center called do not be afraid in honor of pope john paul ii and they'll be like a library chapel and conference rooms in his honor I had the privilege of offering Mass there in the Chapel of the Divine Mercy but I don't remember seeing the quarry it was down the hill from the mother still yes and when you go to some place like that and I remember there this is special presence I went to in Paris to move the Bach in the Chapel of the miraculous metal st. Catherine Laboure and I was there with someone and I said Catherine Laboure is in this Chapel I can tell and when I get the same Faustina's I had the same experience that presence is there if you ever experienced that yes that's same as when you get to the the grotto at Lourdes that's right course of course my good my good friend Bernadette and it's interesting I went to the body of Bernadette is in the vert where she died as a young sister and her body is there very impressive you know incorrupt total anchor and corrupt in the chapel and there you're obviously Bernadette's the site is there but I experience her presence at Lourdes Lourdes is marvelous place I love Lourdes and the statue of Our Lady for those who believe no explanation is necessary and those who don't believe no explanation is possible that's right out of the statue there well father let's get back to the Divine Mercy now in this country now the devotion has been growing sad to say I remember people 15 or 20 years ago we're opposed to the devotion first incomprehensible I said how could you be against to the Vipers what are you in favor of the vine justice would you like to have tried to divide Arthur well the Lord says if you refuse to pass through the gate of mercy you will have to pass through the gate of justice and but and you know I'm sorry to say some of the member of the clergy actually well complaining about it we got too much going on already too many things too many you know we don't lead us to a lady and a beater the Sacred Heart don't mean it as a idea did they I don't want anything well and there are tremendous promises with the novena chaplets before the feast of mercy the Lord says even unimaginable Grace's will be bestowed through that prayer and particularly for the sick or dying but the sick and the die and what what a beautiful prayer that is to be praying for the dying we're all gonna be dying the whole kit and caboodle of us everybody and when you have friends or dear ones or relatives old or young sometimes very young what more beautiful thing well one of the objections is in that you're praying for the sake of his sorrowful passion have mercy on us but this it's Easter week how can you bring that up again and actually my rebuttal is that at the height of the Easter celebration and Easter night in the Eastern Churches particularly Greek in the Russian there is a special of him song three times and it intertwines the cross and the resurrection yes continuously within the hymn and resurrection is meaningless without the crew this is why pope john paul ii calls the Paschal mystery the Easter gift but the Paschal mystery includes the passion death and the resurrection and what would you know with the gospel without the cross is silly it's you know a pious thought but well the reason there is I tell people we have this connection with God as a piece of coal has with a diamond there's some kind of a carbon there with with those minerals but the piece of coal can become a sparkling diamond if it undergoes intense heat and pressure and that was what the passion was for the humanity of Jesus so that when he went through the passion and the death and even tasted rejection and damnation because he did it out of love as father Cardinal Vanuatu's for the father's intention to save sinners and for his love for sinners not to be lost the his love changed that damnation into salvation and so it's a the Paschal mystery is passing from death to life an aspect of this father I want to hear you talk about this and I offered all our group are listening to us today when you're dealing with someone who has been way off the line they've been away from the church away from God maybe leading a very sinful life along with not only not religion but not morality somebody who has led a very bad life and you're a priest particularly an person getting older or having a serious illness they want to talk suddenly they never talk to him a priest in 25 years and they want to talk what do you talk about well they bring up their problem yeah yeah the solution is that the Lord gives us through these revelations oh I'm at my mercy yes and you know well in fact he said that for some if even the greatest sinner would recite the chaplet of divine mercy once he would receive grace from His mercy and we have many accounts that the Lord keeps to his promise and he calls that the last plank of salvation actually is like a sheet anchor the last big anchor that's thrown into to stabilize the ship in in times of danger and that's what the name he gave so and he keeps his promises because the people who take them up on it know the effects well the fact is the disciples and apostles of divine mercy have been giving out a hundred million papers with the Divine Mercy chaplet on how to say it all over the place I have a box of them in my room I must step 500 that they gave them to me when you get near an apostle of mercy you better watch out he's not a duck and anybody could be able to get hold of it and you know it's totally appropriate for a Protestant you know oh yeah I've discovered this when we're picketing and a more children place and the Catholics are out there saying the rosary and Protestant people say well well are we supposed to be saved well I said well let's say the divided mercy and you joined it as a joy right it they loved it it's very scriptural very scriptural and it's purely Christian is about Christ and I was down someplace preaching and they were down there or someplace in the south some city down there and we went over to the abortion wedding already and maybe just a few Catholics because very few Catholics lived there very devout Protestant people on Sunday Saturday afternoon I don't praying and the Catholics affected Toby l say anything yeah wheat I told if I get some cards but let's say this and we all said it together and it was beautiful I I wish that it was more and more known to Protestant people well actually a great benefactor helped us and to put the message of mercy and iPods and you can get the apps which has chaplet there how to say it etc and all the other information can be copied off the iPod as a result I say under the Divine Mercy I'm sorry to say the Friars don't even have television so I I've heard this about iPods because you know that not they have preparation for confessional yeah I heard that yeah III when I first learned about iPods there was something you're gonna eat I think so but they tell me all this iPods and all this is going on I just I know how to play a phonograph that's about all now the world is moving in to a strange time there is apparently world peace except for a few places Libya a few places where there some places in Africa there are serious things but for the most part the world at this moment is peaceful and people convinced that it's going to go on that was the dream of the United Nations that there would be world peace and God knows we would all be very grateful that there was well our Lord told Sister Faustina twice mankind will have no peace so long as it does not turn with trust in my mercy and the word that was transferred in English peace actually in the Polish would mean security and that's what people are looking for nonetheless that there's a great lack of security among people now and so the Lord promises but we need to trust him we have to take his word for it and act upon it we mean so much I you know I was a little boy and I went to my grandmother's house on a Sunday afternoon and we walked up she live in second-floor in Bayonne and the house was absolutely silent several cousins met and I heard a voice on the Delano and I have asked the Congress to pass a declaration of war with Franklin Delano Roosevelt and it was the beginning of the Second World War which was already raging in Europe and what a terrible time we lived through and when did the war come to an end about 25 years later with the Cold War now there is relatively peace in the world but I think it would be foolish to assume that we're going to be living through long times of peacefulness I wish it were true I'd be very grateful to God but the day may come that we really need a prayer for peace again we have to trust the Lord for it remember years ago when we were young fellows at the end of mass at the end of mass there was always the prayer for peace for the hail holy queen the three Hail Marys it was for peace and for the conversion of Russia remember that way back now you go to Russia there's much more religion all over the place and the Orthodox and the Catholics and Protestants and the Jews and the Muslims are there but what will happen in the future and this is when we must train and work divine mercy father thank you so very much Oh Lord bless each one of us watching and listening to our program today and please bless for the Seraphim and all who work for divine mercy in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen and we ask you to please send in your envelopes to EWTN to keep our program going in our network going it's a big job and I know you have been faithful and generous these difficult times financially but I must say that people are being faithful to EWTN and please keep it going because it is the work of God god bless

Channel: EWTN

Views: 20,257

Rating: 4.8965516 out of 5

Keywords: EWTN, Catholic, Sunday Night Prime, Benedict Groeschel, Fr. Seraphim Michalenko, Divine Mercy

Id: D35E-ZxqdgU

Length: 52min 32sec (3152 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 21 2011