Each day until Divine Mercy Sunday on April 7th, I will email you one thought from that day’s brief reading from Fr. Michael Gaitley’s fine book, 33 Days to Merciful Love. I render full credit for these thoughts, respecting copyright laws, to Fr. Gaitley. Each reading ends with a prayer, which I ask you to pray with me for this intention: the conversion of our parish.
Day Twenty-Six
A happy and blessed Easter morning to you. All year long I look forward to today’s morning prayer verse, “The splendor of Christ risen from the dead shines on the people redeemed by His blood.” Last night’s Easter Vigil was my first in 33 years that did not seem to drag, even though it was a three-hour Mass with nine readings and nine baptisms. It flowed like living water into the hearts and minds of all those good people listening in the dark with their lighted candles. Haec dies quam fecit Dominus; exultemus et laetemur in ea. Alleluia!
In today’s reading Fr. Gaitley introduces the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, a most powerful prayer given to the Church between the last two world wars. It echoes and extends the Great Doxology at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer, when the priest offers the crucified and risen Lord to the Father for the salvation of the world: “through Him, with Him, and in Him, Eternal Father, I offer you the body and blood of your dearly beloved Son.”
What have we to offer? Only what we have received. The world is immersed in darkness, but the light of Christ cannot be overcome by it. We receive that light on this Easter morning. We receive the Body and the Blood, and we can offer it to the Father “in atonement for our sins, and the sins of all the world.” If God had three true missionaries of Divine Mercy, the world would certainly be saved through their prayers and offerings. Will you and I be at least two of those missionaries?
Prayer
Come, Holy Spirit, fire of mercy. Inspire me to help save the world as a prayerful missionary of Divine Mercy.
Day Twenty-Six
A happy and blessed Easter morning to you. All year long I look forward to today’s morning prayer verse, “The splendor of Christ risen from the dead shines on the people redeemed by His blood.” Last night’s Easter Vigil was my first in 33 years that did not seem to drag, even though it was a three-hour Mass with nine readings and nine baptisms. It flowed like living water into the hearts and minds of all those good people listening in the dark with their lighted candles. Haec dies quam fecit Dominus; exultemus et laetemur in ea. Alleluia!
In today’s reading Fr. Gaitley introduces the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, a most powerful prayer given to the Church between the last two world wars. It echoes and extends the Great Doxology at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer, when the priest offers the crucified and risen Lord to the Father for the salvation of the world: “through Him, with Him, and in Him, Eternal Father, I offer you the body and blood of your dearly beloved Son.”
What have we to offer? Only what we have received. The world is immersed in darkness, but the light of Christ cannot be overcome by it. We receive that light on this Easter morning. We receive the Body and the Blood, and we can offer it to the Father “in atonement for our sins, and the sins of all the world.” If God had three true missionaries of Divine Mercy, the world would certainly be saved through their prayers and offerings. Will you and I be at least two of those missionaries?
Prayer
Come, Holy Spirit, fire of mercy. Inspire me to help save the world as a prayerful missionary of Divine Mercy.
Last night's Easter Vigil
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