The Top Ten Questions about Divine Mercy Sunday with Fr. Chris Alar and Dave and Joan Maroney

let's go right here all right awesome welcome everybody i'm father chris aylar from the national shrine of the divine mercy and we are pleased to have you with us as we are preparing for one of the most important in fact the most important liturgical time of the year and that is the easter octave including divine mercy sunday you know a lot of times we have great questions from all over the world and one of our apostolates joan and dave baroni who run the mother of mercy messengers out of texas have been for a long time spreading god's divine mercy around the world and they like us get a lot of questions and so in conversation with joan and dave they said you know father it'd be great if we could find a way to help spread in a fast easy to understand way some of these what we call faqs or frequently asked questions about god's divine mercy and so we wanted to take this chance to do that so joan dave god bless you both uh thank you for your ministry and welcome thank you thank you thank you father for having us we're so excited to be here and we think this is really going to be a much needed a little video to to get some of these this information about uh this great feast out there and joan has some questions here so do you want to just dive right in joni right well i'm sure most of you know uh when is the feast of mercy it's not a new feast in the church right it was something that's always been there liturgically it's the eighth day father you do such a beautiful job of explaining the significance of the eighth day in your book understanding divine mercy everybody should get this book read it it's got all kinds of great stuff you want to talk briefly just about that father uh and that's on our divine mercy for america yes dot org in in the story yes in fact thank you for reminding me i wanted to mention the great work that you guys are doing now more than ever uh prayers are needed for our nation uh for our country and so divine mercy for america is a great resource and so yes thank you you can visit their website and to be able to pick up a copy of that book so divine mercy for america so beautiful and uh yes the the eighth day is significant because as jesus told saint faustina the feast has to be on that day when is the eighth day the sunday after easter we start with easter sunday day one and divine mercy sunday is the eighth day in a nutshell why is that because seven to the jews represented this world the perfect number but eight represented eternity so on that eighth day which we now call divine mercy sunday jesus the groom will come for his bride and our goal as that bride is to be spotless and ready for him and that's what this feast is all about and there are many graces the lord says on this day all the floodgates through which grace flow are opened and especially when we have come to him in a state of grace where we've been to confession and we receive him in holy communion all of our sins and all of our punishment can be completely wiped away so this gets us into a lot of questions about communion and about confession and about how we celebrate it on that day so let's let's start with one father which which question should we start with first um start with the go ahead i'll let you guys i'll let you guys lead the first question all right do you have to go to communion on that day okay so the big confusion on this is confession and communion are the two requirements let's start with confession that does not have to be on divine mercy sunday now that's misunderstood by a lot of people but actually saint faustina went for her confession a couple saturdays before that and so we as long as we're in a state of grace we have to be in a state of grace so we need to go to confession john as you said before the church teaches at least once a year it doesn't say when to do the confession but the communion should be in the easter season as you've pointed out so we equate the two together so the easy answer if you want to be safe is the confession could be any time on the day of divine mercy sunday or before it as long as you're in a state of grace now for a communion we need to go to communion on that day either at the vigil or the massive anticipation on saturday night or any mass on sunday any mass suffices and we'll talk a little bit more about this later father my church is closed i'm bedridden i'm quarantined then in those cases you make an act of contrition telling god that you're sorry and you make a spiritual act of communion asking god to come into your heart to receive that grace like if you did receive him in holy communion and like we said too father um because some people there is a place in the diary there is a quote i should know the number but it says the soul that will go to confession and receive communion on that day but other places it says the soul it's through communion it's through communion where we receive christ inside of us that's what cleanses us that's what washes us that's what fills us with his grace so i asked father seraphim but why does it say the soul that will go to confession and receive communion on that day and he would say jesus can't tell you to do something that is impossible and in the first case like he would say no no no not every soul not every person catholic could go to confession on one day so that's possible that's impossible and then the other thing that really hit me like we when we were talking about earlier about the precepts of the church where we have to go to confession at least once a year and if we have to go to communion during the easter season it makes sense it should be close to that so jesus couldn't tell you to all go on the feast of mercy because then that's outside of the teachings of the church and private revelation never does that so we hope that that helps you all explain this confusion about it now father there's some confusion i think about going to confession because someone will say and in fact i heard a priest say this the other day as long as they go to confession eight days before or eight days after where does that come in well i think first of all god bless the priest for remembering the number eight but he's caught before the jubilee year of 2000 that used to be the number designated that you required for a plenary indulgence the church for years decades centuries used to be eight days before or after doing a plenary indulgence we had to go to confession since the jubilee year of 2000 that has changed to be about 20. however this is for a plenary indulgence and i'm sure that's a future question joan you've got listed coming up and we'll answer it then but the plenary indulgence is different from the extraordinary promise and we'll get to that as we go through these questions but that is a difference so the church teaches now about 20 days but again for the plenary indulgence not necessarily for the extraordinary promise so bottom line answer get to confession as soon as you can near nearest as possible to divine mercy sunday but make sure you're in a state of grace and when you're in the state of grace and you receive holy communion you ask for this gift what's the gift complete forgiveness of not only all sins but all punishment due to sin it's a beautiful grace right wonderful wonderful you know should i just jump in uh we've heard the uh a question like this you know uh my pastor will not let us have the three o'clock holy hour uh for mercy sunday so we're not going to be able to get the graces you know would you like to address that yeah that's and also common misunderstanding because people will be under the misimpression or the misunderstanding that if it's not a specifically scheduled uh mass and prayer service including the chaplet of divine mercy and including the three o'clock prayers that it's therefore not uh valid and they're not able to get the grace that is not true we can fulfill this promise or excuse me we can receive this promise and fulfill the obligations simply by going to any mass on either the saturday night before or on any sunday mass even even though the priest is supposed to talk about mercy even if the priest never mentions the word mercy you still get this grace and so do not worry it's a grace that is there all you have to do is ask for it regardless of which mass that you go to on saturday night or sunday i like to say you know it's like uh think about easter how do you celebrate easter you go to mass you know the celebration is in the mass and it's the same for the feast of mercy the celebration is in the mass of course it's great if you have an afternoon holy hour and pray the chaplet and all of that is wonderful and super and very good yes but the the main the height of the celebration is in the mass absolutely and the source and summit of receiving holy communion we even had some people sometimes i've heard complain that father won't let us do a mercy sunday celebration because he insists on having first holy communions on that day or he insists on having confirmations and i say what a beautiful day talk about a day to celebrate god's mercy with children or young people being confirmed or children receiving communion on the first day you know the first time and their families coming in for these events you know so there's so many beautiful ways if you really think about you know all the graces all the love all the mercy god wants to pour out upon us on that day for some is this most special eight days of the entire year all eight days are celebrated as one day because it's what we call the octave of easter eight being an octave or octave being eight so every day from easter sunday through divine mercy sunday is considered one liturgical celebration of the octave of easter and that's what i put in that book in each of those eight days our chuck full of grace that's why even on the friday during that octave we can eat meat because it's a big celebration awesome very well that's professional good to know profound yes what about the veneration of the image because it does also say in the diary when jesus first appeared and said that he wanted this feast to be celebrated he wanted this image to be painted and he wanted it to be venerated the first sunday after easter that year so does every parish does every person address the the veneration of the image father yeah in fact this is something our lord tells us we should be doing throughout the year he wants this image in every home um you know joan and dave were great for helping us spread these images around and getting them out into the public in fact we had those images at the life march you know these are beautiful ways to venerate the image our lord wants that image in every home and wants it to be venerated regardless of the day and i think that's specifically why he didn't mention this on divine mercy sunday because then everybody would think oh well i venerated it last divine mercy sunday that's all i need to do actually no he wants this as a way of life it's the same thing with praying the chaplet these are acts of mercy either venerating the image or praying the chaplet that we can get by doing or by doing these acts of mercy we can receive what's called a plenary indulgence so what is the difference between a plenary indulgence and this extraordinary promise that we are offered by jesus on this day okay now this gets a little confusing so it seems but actually it's not it's not too bad if you think about it for a moment all right what is the difference between a plenary indulgence and and the extraordinary promise well let's start with what's similar about it what's similar about it is both grant the complete forgiveness of not only all your sins because remember when you go into the confessional as long as you have a valid confession now that might be worth stopping for a moment what constitutes a valid confession three things we must have three things present to have a valid confession one we must confess all grave sins we can remember now people don't think about grave sins a lot of times that are grave sins you don't like missing mass on sunday people don't think that that's necessarily grave matter it is um sexual impurity with ourselves people think well it's not with another person so that's not grave matter yes it it can be uh gossip people think well oh it was just a little gossip that can be seriously grave matter so people are are very much i think in today's day and age not thinking about those types of things and so they don't confess those we must confess all grave sins we can remember or our confession isn't valid i had a woman once come to me at a mission and confessed to sin that she committed 24 years earlier i assume she just remembered she said no i then i said oh you must have reconfessed this then she says no i've never confessed it wow you know god bless you heaven's elated that you're here but every one of her confessions has been invalid you you can't be a cafeteria catholic and say well i'm going to confess this grave sin and that grave sin but not this one i i don't want to confess this it's too embarrassing no get it out god god is great greater mercy than you can imagine so confess that now the second thing is you must have some form of contrition which means some sorrow it doesn't have to be perfect the very fact that you go into the confessional is usually enough contrition it's not perfect but it's a start okay and then third you must do your penance or some form of satisfaction to make up for the scar to the body of christ now you do those three things you have a valid confession now here's what people don't understand when you come out of that confessional is the sin guaranteed forgiven yes but is the punishment also gone or does that remain not so fast here the eternal punishment duda said aka hell that's gone as long as you got a valid confession that's wiped away you are no longer facing the fires of hell unless you commit another mortal sin and die in an unrepentant state however the temporal punishment due to sin aka purgatory that may remain if it does we're not ready when the groom comes for us on that eighth day for his bride so we must find a way to be spotless for our bri our groom he gives us the way that is a plenary indulgence which we can do any day of the year to be freed from not only all of our sin but all the punishment due to sin but here's the difference one we must do the four conditions that come with it one we must receive or go to confession again about 20 days before or after since the jubilee year the church has said 20 days before or after if you're in a state of grace you can go before if you're not in this i'm sorry if you're in a state of grace you could go even after if you're not in a state of grace you must go before second you must receive holy communion that is imperative on divine i'm sorry for plenary indulgence just receive holy communion third you pray for the intentions of the holy father and that's usually in our father he'll marry glory be and and last but not easiest is no attachment to sin even vino now here's my point that's not easy you know we all struggle in some way i still get gluttonous i still am impatient i still you know we all have these struggles with attachment to sin now what do we do because when god comes for us our indulgences may only have been partial rather than plenary which means full because we have these attachments you know um god once told i think it was saint philip mary one of the great saints that there was once a cathedral of 1200 people and he said only two people got the plenary indulgence because it's difficult now does that mean we don't do it no you should always try it because you can at least get that partial and pennies equal dollars right okay now the problem is this we have attachment to sin so what do we do if if if we don't get the full plenary indulgence we still got stain on our soul the stain of sin is confessed and gone but the stain of temporal punishment may remain now how do we get rid of it if the plenary indulgence is sometimes hard to get god's mercy steps in and gives us another way divine mercy sunday on that day jesus said the soul that goes to confession and receives holy communion now the confession could be before the confession does not have to be on that particular day it can be any time before as long as we're in a state of grace and we receive holy communion or in the case of closed churches in covid make your active contrition and spiritual act of communion here's what jesus promises you do those two things and you will be completely wiped clean of not only all sin but all punishment due to sin and this is beautiful and a difference between the plenary indulgence and the extraordinary promise a little bit that i learned from stack dr robert stack home father seraphim is the end is the same complete forgiveness of all sins and punishment the road map to get there is different the roadmap for the plenary indulgence is a little harder you have to have four conditions the roadmap for divine mercy sunday is much easier two conditions all you have to do is get the confession and holy communion and god bless you because then it's like a second baptism your soul will never be cleaner other than it is and then on the moment of your original baptism and so i'll finish with this the beautiful grace of divine mercy sunday is anybody can get it because anybody can climb out of the gutter go to confession receive holy communion and receive this grace what about non-catholics father what about non-catholics i think that was one of your questions yes if you truly say lord i'm sorry forgive me forgive me of the sins have mercy on me lord jesus christ son of living god have mercy on me a poor sinner forgive me that's like your your confession and then for non-catholics come ask god to come into your heart as jesus to come into your heart unite with you come into your heart take place in your heart give you that grace that's like a spiritual communion and you can too receive that grace so sorry for the long-winded answer but there's so much there that is so powerful and that's the gift that we have on this day beautiful and like like we said it is uh the easter season and on easter what do we do we renew our baptismal promises we renounce satan so we let him know we we open ourselves up as you said as catholics we can go to confession make that act do the sacrament but if you're not catholic as long as you are repentant and how many of us like we said even if we go to confession we might be going and not really truly repentant and and then to receive jesus in holy communion with that desire with that love and because sometimes we even go through that sacrament without that desire without that love and and without a spiritual communion and so people that can't receive the sacrament actually father seraphim would teach this they can be getting even more out of it than those of us that have the sacraments precisely because of what's in their heart and it makes me think from the diary you know jesus told saint faustina that the feast of mercy arose from the very depths of of his tender heart you know and i came to the catholic faith uh as an adult from uh being raised baptist you know and uh went through rcia and all of that and and then in this work that we've been doing you know i've just uh grown this great appreciation of the tenderness i mean the heart of jesus is the most tender heart in the world all he wants to do is just to love us you know and so that's what we that's our heart when we come to him for the feast of mercy is just thank you jesus for your love and your mercy on on us and he says you know i want to heal mankind not to punish it you know he wants us to be better he wants us to be whole he wants us to be healed uh he doesn't like sin he doesn't like all these terrible things that are happening and this is our opportunity and he said tell souls to ask for much very much because it's my desire to give them much but i'm sad when they narrow their hearts and they ask for little and so maybe we you know one of the other things that father seraph and i want to make sure that we say this he goes make sure they know remission of sin and punishment yes this cleansing this baptismal grace but also the everyday temporal things that we need you know healing in our families you know reconciliations we need good jobs we might have financial worries we might lack peace we might have a lot of anxiety there's very real things that we can you know make our list as i was sharing with you earlier we know of kids that prayed for their parents marriages to heal or to quit smoking to find a spouse people you know i'm sure you've had the same people tell you i found my spouse sunday right so many many blessings are on our doorstep and the world needs it now more than ever yeah and and the most important thing there is realizing that you know the grace is um i told you guys earlier a story where somebody came to me for confession i'm sorry at a mission and said well father that's great uh you know but i'm just going to fall back into the same sin and and then he told me that he later actually felt a super grace while receiving holy communion on divine mercy sunday and he's not committed that same sin for years now and so there is a lot of extra grace not just to cleanse us from the past but to prevent us from falling into sin in the future so powerful exactly and you know we should mention too that remember though somebody's once also said to me father sounds too good to be true well it isn't it isn't it is the fact that god's mercy is beyond us but it isn't because it's not just this free ticket to sin you know we can't continue to live a life that is just uh based on well you know i i can continue my affair i continue to embezzle money i can continue to cheat on my taxes and expect it we're going to be all cleansed and ready to meet god you know we have to have a purpose of amendment we have to have what father roshitsky says is a rectification of the will we have to say you know what lord i want to get out of this you know i'm struggling right now i might have this addiction but i want to get out i really do and i love it was it mother teresa who said you know the lord doesn't look at if you fall seven times a day as long as you get up eight and yeah and father you know what i don't know if we mentioned this before but there is the novena that begins on good friday that's that's an important one do you have to do the novena yes for the grace this is a way though to prepare for the feast of mercy this is a way to bring all souls to the fount of his mercy but it's not a requirement in order for us to receive the grace on mercy sunday correct again uh doing the novena was actually something not given as a requirement for anything it was given to saint faustina to do specifically between good friday and the saturday before divine mercy sunday it was not given to us as a requirement now we do it in imitation of her and because what's unique about that novena is it's the only individual we have that's not our intentions you know if we lose something we want to find it if we have cancer we want to be healed but the divine mercy navina is the only individual we have that's not our intentions it's god's intentions you know bring me the souls of priests and religious bring me the souls of lukewarm sinners um in that gift in that gift of the novena this is something that we can pray any time it doesn't have to be we pray perpetually here at the divine mercy national shrine we pray it every day just we rotate it it's not a requirement necessarily for the grace of divine mercy sunday but what it does give you is grace in general this is a beautiful way of life it's kind of like the deeds of mercy in 742 of the diary jesus says i'm giving you three ways to exercise mercy word deed and prayer i need you to do it again he doesn't mention that specifically for divine mercy sunday because i think again he doesn't want people thinking well i did it on that day and i'm done no that's a daily responsibility it's a daily way of life on this day only requirements are confession and holy communion and so that's what we have to realize all those other things are a way of life every day we should be doing them but specifically for this grace this promise is confession holy communion and that is why it's so important because all jesus is doing here is getting us back to the sacraments it's not a magic wand it's not a rabbit's foot all this is is getting us back to the sacraments as you can see on your image my image what are the sacraments sacraments are the cleansing waters of baptism and confession and the the ray of red is the precious blood i'll quickly say this why those two rays all right satan only has two tools sin and the result of sin is death those are satan's only two tools sin and death what wipes out sin the cleansing waters of baptism and confession the pale ray what's satan's other great tool death what was life or what defeats death life and what's life to the jews blood because blood was the life of the animal so in this image we have everything and it has the two tools christ gives us the cleansing waters of baptism confession the healing ray of the precious blood it's the answer to everything it's it's our penicillin amen i love the angle of your image there it looks like those rays are just falling out upon us you know it's great yeah it's powerful powerful stuff well father i think we've covered our list um if anybody has any more you can reach out to us uh go to divinemercyforamerica.org there's contact us or i know father chris gets gazillions of emails and questions and everything so at divinemercyforamerica.org and click on the membership tab and uh get on our email list oh and we also send out that novena beginning on good friday so it'll come if you want it to to get hooked up with that and we we have it available as a yeah i like it they get the prayers on their phone it's very convenient you know yeah to allow you to do that so we're here to help you and we want to thank you you know we want to thank all the marion fathers all of those great people that work there at the marion helper center and uh the the entire association of marion helpers for all the prayers and and support you know so uh we're very very grateful well thank you to both of you guys you know i would like to add one quick last one in there and that is people have asked from time to time well father what do i get then on divine mercy sunday should i do the plenary indulgence or should i do the extraordinary promise and this is important i would like to throw this last one in there this is the one day of the year because you remember a plenary indulgence could be for yourself or a holy soul you can't give a plenary indulgence to another living person it is for yourself or a holy soul i do a plenary indulgence every day the first 29 days of the month i do it for holy souls and the last day of the month i do it for myself that's just how i do it now the beautiful grace of divine mercy sunday is only for yourself so here's a little plan when you receive the communion on that day do both do an act of veneration of the image to uh the novena whatever you want to do to get the plenary indulgence offer that for a holy soul but then confession and communion for yourself to also receive on that day so it's a two four one it's a beautiful grace to be able to get that double portion of god's helping of grace and so a beautiful gift that we don't want to forget about and um and so that that that act of doing that is very very very important and so people always ask us father is the plenary indulgence transferable no i mean the planetary indulgence can be for holy soul yourself but the promise of divine mercy sunday is for yourself wow beautiful interesting gosh wow well everybody we hope you all understand have a better understanding of of all the graces that are available what you have to do don't have to do should do it's easier than than uh a lot of us think and and make it so thank you father for uh having this time to to discuss this and make this more well-known well god bless you guys in your ministry as well and to all of those who have joined us please don't let this grace of divine mercy slip on by this is the most powerful grace that we can ever receive it's tied to the beautiful gift of easter and it'll last and cleanse our souls so that our lord when he does come we're ready to be that spotless bride and that is the whole objective is to be cleansed and spotless so that when our groom does come we are without stain and so that's the purpose that's why he gives us on this eighth day as representing eternity and on that eighth day when we enter into eternity you'll be ready praise be to god now and prayer and forever and may almighty god bless your ministry and all of our listeners in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen amen amen thank you father god bless you okay i

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Length: 32min 2sec (1922 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 31 2021