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See also: Out of the Wounds of Christ was born the Chaplet of Divine Mercy
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See also: "Glory Be" Novena
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See also: The Image of Divine Mercy is a Living Image
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The Third Hour - Intercessory Prayer |
The purpose of the message of Divine Mercy recorded in the Diary of Saint Faustina is to make known the power of intercessory prayer to bring God’s Mercy to all mankind. All the Divine Mercy prayers in the Diary are intercessory prayers.
Remember the prayers are all in the plural.
Take any element or facet of the diary and analyse it again to understand its full meaning better. You will find Jesus is calling us to intercessory prayer to help save souls.
Why? because Jesus tells us the world needs conversion and this is ‘the final hope for mankind’.
So I have taken a very important prayer from the Diary to analyse and understand why Jesus felt it so important as part of this final hope.
This prayer, contrary to popular belief, was not given to us by Jesus as a three 0’Clock prayer, just read what he said when He gave this to St.Faustina.
Jesus said: “I desire that you know more profoundly the love that burns in My Heart for souls, and you will understand this when you meditate upon My Passion. Call upon My mercy on behalf of sinners; I desire their salvation. When you say this prayer, with a contrite heart and with faith on behalf of some sinner, I will give him the grace of conversion.
Then He said, this is the prayer: “O Blood and Water, which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fount of Mercy for us, I trust in You.” (Diary 186-187)
This prayer was given to us by Jesus as a very powerful intercessory prayer for the conversion of sinners, hence, making us ‘the final hope’ for some sinner.
The real importance of this prayer was that it was given to us to bring a sinner and those who have strayed from the faith to Him at any time day or night for saving.
It shows us how important our prayers are for sinners, the prayers of simple ordinary people in these situations. Just read the Diary of Saint Faustina, to see how powerful the Lord has made our intercessory prayer.
The prayer Jesus gave us to invite Him into the life of another, is a prayer that shows our belief and our trust in His Sacrifice on the cross to bring Divine Mercy to all mankind, especially sinners.
St. Faustina said: I asked the Lord for help with a lost soul, and the good Lord answered by entrusting this soul into my care. How much suffering this soul cost me is known only to God. For no other soul did I make so many sacrifices, and for no other soul did I offer so much prayer before the throne of God as I did for this lost soul. I felt finally that I had forced God to grant this soul the grace of conversion. When I reflect on this, I see that this souls conversion was truly a miracle, but it also showed me the power of intercessory prayer before God” (Diary, 202).
The lost soul that Saint Faustina was praying for, was that of her sister, Wanda.
You may ask why so much was expected of St. Faustina to save her sisters soul, because to those that are given much, much is expected. For St. Faustina the veil was lifted, when she was given the heavenly vision, and saw the Father in Heaven on His throne. (Diary Parg. 474)
And I know there are many people who have members of their own families who have strayed or maybe lost the faith entirely. If a member of your family is in this position, then in the Divine Mercy message you have been given the means of saving of their soul. Because he has given us the prayers and the power to save them, and you may be their final hope.
If only people could understand the power of intercessory prayer.
It is quite clear in the Diary that all souls can be saved by intercessory prayer.
St.Faustina records in the diary: “O my God, I now know, what my mission on earth is, it is to constantly endeavour to plead for mercy for all mankind” (Diary, 482).
At the break of day, Saint Faustina’s first intercessory prayer was for those about to die unprepared, because they could be on the brink of eternal damnation.
And this was her prayer: Jesus I beg You, by the inconceivable power of Your mercy, let all the souls who will die this day, escape the fire of hell, even if they have been the greatest sinners the world has ever known.
She recorded in the Diary what happened when she said this prayer “when I said this prayer, Jesus pressed me to His Heart and said, “You have come to know the depths of My mercy. I will do what you ask, but you must unite yourself continually with My agonising Heart and make reparation to My justice” (Diary, 873).
With intercessory prayer you are giving witness to your belief in God and His great grace of Divine Mercy given through His Son Jesus Christ, our Saviour.
Intercessory prayer through Jesus is the most powerful of all prayers because it is demonstrating your trust in God the Father’s love for His Son, there is no better way of glorifying God the Father, than to pray to Him through His Son Jesus Christ.
Jesus said, “ask and you shall receive; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you. For whoever asks, receives; whoever seeks, finds; whoever knocks, is admitted. How much more will the heavenly Father give, through His Son, to those who ask Him through Jesus. (Luke Ch. 11 verse: 9-13)
And in our miserable human condition there is intense need of intercessory prayer. Because without it, sinners who will not pray for themselves are without purpose and without hope. The greatest need in this world is for God's mercy, that mercy that brings into a sinners life, forgiveness, reconciliation, love, and salvation.
Only God the Father, in His Spirit of Mercy, can answer the needs through intercessory prayer of those who are without prayer, and therefore without hope of salvation.
To obtain God's mercy for others, depends on our asking for it with trust, because God so respects our trust in Him, that He will not violate that trust.
He waits for us to exercise our right to trust in His mercy. When we do this, we then give God the freedom to grant mercy to others, even when they do not ask for it themselves.
If only people would use the power of this prayer.
It seems that by intercessory prayer we give God permission to be merciful. And His mercy will always exceed the needs of our prayer. For His plans are always greater than our plans. (Rom chap 11 verse 32)
So when we pray, we allow God to fulfil His plan. And His plan is to grant mercy to a sinner when it is sincerely asked for by a contrite soul.
For this reason He also gave us the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, which is a Eucharistic offering. It echoes the prayer of St. Michael the Archangel at Fatima and is so close to the offering and sacrifice of the Holy Mass when we say: “Eternal Father, I offer You the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your dearly beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world; for the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world”
We can continuously intercede for God's mercy throughout the day with the simple words, "Jesus have Mercy on us and on the whole world”. We can cry out with our hearts, as St. Faustina did, to Jesus, whose Heart was opened wide for us on the Cross as the fount of the Father's mercy.
By this prayer we not only honour Jesus, as Divine Mercy itself, but we also ask Him to have mercy on us, on our own needs, on the needs of the Church and on the needs of the whole world.
This could be a continual cry from our heart and our lips as we daily encounter the needs of the human condition. "Jesus, have Mercy on us, and on the whole world”.
Praying for God's mercy for others is a great stepping stone to sanctity.
When we ask for mercy, we ask for and receive the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Mercy. It is the Holy Spirit who transforms us, who is poured into our hearts and makes us holy. It is the Holy Spirit who transforms our earthen vessels, and all our misery, into His temples! Holiness is not so much the vessel as the content within the vessel; that is, the living presence of the Holy Spirit within us. (Rom chap 5: verse 5)
The more we ask for God's mercy, the more we are transformed into vessels of that mercy, vessels that can carry it to a world that is terribly in need. And there is no doubt that the world's greatest and most urgent need is the mercy of God.
This urgency is one of the most important messages from Our Lord to Saint Faustina, a message from Him seeking intercessory prayer for the whole world, as revealed in Saint Faustina’s diary.
“Speak to the whole world about My mercy; let all mankind recognise My unfathomable mercy. It is a sign for the end times; after it will come the day of justice. While there is still time, let them have recourse to the fount of My mercy; let them profit from the Blood and Water which gushed forth from My merciful Heart for all mankind”.
(Diary 848)
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