20a. - 20k. Divine Mercy Section - Apostolate for Family Consecration

(3) Our weapon and strategy is to trust in Divine Mercy — Jesus Incarnate — and implore
God’s mercy “on us and on the whole world.”
The Vicar of Christ, Pope John Paul II, identifies the problem in the Church and the
world as “lack of peace”; and he proclaims that the response of the Church to this problem is
the mercy of God — the only answer. He challenges the Church not only to preach and
practice mercy, but to implore God’s mercy (cf. Rich in Mercy, 15). Describing the evil of our
day in terms of Noah, he encourages us to call upon the “motherly” love of God:
“Like the prophets, let us appeal to that love which has maternal characteristics — which
like a mother goes after each of her children, after each lost sheep, even if the lost are in
the millions, even if the evil in the world outweighs honesty, even if mankind deserves
because of its sins a kind of modern ‘flood,’ as did the generation of Noah.”
He exhorts us also to cry to the Father’s love revealed in Jesus, the source of mercy:
“Let us then appeal also to that kind of fatherly love revealed to us by Christ in His
messianic mission, which reached its ultimate expression in His cross, in His passion and
in His Resurrection!”
In this cry for mercy, Mary is to be our model:
“Let us appeal to God through Christ, mindful of the words of Mary’s Magnificat which
proclaims ‘mercy from age to age.’
“Let us cry out to God’s own mercy for this present generation!
“May the Church, which like Mary continues to be the spiritual mother of humankind,
express in this prayer her total maternal concern, as well as that trusting love from which
is born the most burning need for prayer.”
This appeal for mercy is love — love for God, whom modern man has rejected by his atheism
and materialism; love for God, whose response to this rejection is forgiveness:
“This cry for mercy is at the same time an expression of our love of God, from Whom
modern man has distanced himself and made of Him a stranger, proclaiming in various
ways that he doesn’t ‘need’ God.
This then is mercy, the love of God Whose insult — rejection by modern man — we feel
deeply and are ready to cry out with Christ on the cross, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do
not know what they do’ (Lk 23:34).”
It in also love for all mankind — each and every one of us:
“This cry for mercy is love for all people, the care which ensures for everyone all true good,
and removes and drives away every sort of evil” (Rich in Mercy VIII:15).
Divine Mercy is the only answer to the problems of the world — there is no escape from
that answer!
This message given to us by Our Lord through the Holy Father is the same message we
receive through the revelations to Sister Faustina:
“Mankind will have no peace until it turns with trust to My mercy” (Diary, 300).
The essence of the devotion to The Divine Mercy — trust and mercy, expressed by word,
deed, and prayer — is also the essence of the answer to problems in the Church and in the
world. We are to be channels of His mercy to the world; we are to be merciful as the heavenly
Father is merciful (cf. Lk 6:36), and so find favor with God, even as Noah did, thus
cooperating in the salvation of this present age.
How are we to be channels of mercy By the practice of trust and mercy in the face of
every sinful and evil situation we encounter, We can respond to the situation in the church
and world by our acts of mercy and by imploring mercy — not cursing the darkness, but
blessing it with the mercy of God.