Divine Mercy

Conversation of the Merciful God With a Despairing Soul. Jesus: O soul steeped in darkness, do not despair. All is not yet lost. Come and confide in your God, who is love and mercy. -- But the soul, deaf even to this appeal, wraps itself in darkness. Jesus calls out again: My child, listen to the voice of your merciful Father. -- In the soul arises this reply: “For me there is no mercy,” and it falls into greater darkness, a despair which is a foretaste of hell and makes it unable to draw near God. Jesus calls to the soul a third time, but the soul remains deaf and blind, hardened and despairing. Then the mercy of God begins to exert itself, and, without any co-operation from the soul, God grants it final grace. If this too is spurned, God will leave the soul in this self-chosen disposition for eternity. This grace emerges from the merciful Heart of Jesus and gives the soul a special light by means of which the soul begins to understand God‟s effort; but conversion depends on its own will. The soul knows that this, for her, is final grace and, should it show even a flicker of good will, the mercy of God will accomplish the rest. My omnipotent mercy is active here. Happy the soul that takes advantage of this grace. Jesus: What joy fills My Heart when you return to me. Because you are weak, I take you in My arms and carry you to the home of My Father. Soul (as if awaking, asks fearfully): Is it possible that there yet is mercy for me? Jesus: There is, My child. You have a special claim on My mercy. Let it act in your poor soul; let the rays of grace enter your soul; they bring with them light, warmth, and life. Soul: But fear fills me at the thought of my sins, and this terrible fear moves me to doubt Your goodness. Jesus: My child, all your sins have not wounded My Heart as painfully as your present lack of trust does – that after so many efforts of My love and mercy, you should still doubt My goodness. Soul: O Lord, save me Yourself, for I perish. Be my Savior. O Lord, I am unable to say anything more; my pitiful heart is torn asunder; but You, O Lord….. Jesus does not let the soul finish but, raising it from the ground, from the depths of its misery, he leads it into the recesses of His Heart where all its sins disappear instantly, consumed by the flames of love. Jesus: Here, soul, are all the treasures of My Heart. Take everything you need from it. Soul: O Lord, I am inundated with Your grace. I sense that a new life has entered into me and, above all, I feel Your love in my heart. That is enough for me. O Lord, I will glorify the omnipotence of Your mercy for all eternity. Encouraged by Your goodness, I will confide to You all the sorrows of my heart. Jesus: Tell me all, My child, hide nothing from Me, because My loving Heart, the Heart of your Best Friend, is listening to you. Soul: O Lord, now I see all my ingratitude and Your goodness. You were pursuing me with Your grace, while I was frustrating Your benevolence. I see that I deserve the depths of hell for spurning Your graces. Jesus (interrupting): Do not be absorbed in your misery – you are still too weak to speak of it – but, rather; gaze on My Heart filled with goodness, and be imbued with My sentiments. Strive for meekness and humility; be merciful to others, as I am to you; and, when you feel your strength failing, if you come to the fountain of mercy to fortify your soul, you will not grow weary on your journey. Soul: Now I understand Your mercy, which protects me, and like a brilliant star, leads me into the home of my Father, protecting me from the horrors of hell that I have deserved, not once, but a thousand times. O Lord, eternity will hardly suffice for me to give due praise to Your unfathomable mercy and Your compassion for me. - Entry 1486 from The Diary of St Faustina

"Since our souls will be eternal, we ought to procure, not a fortune which soon ends, but one that will be everlasting. What would it profit you to be happy here (if it were possible for a soul to be happy without God), if hereafter you must be miserable for all eternity? You have built that house to your entire satisfaction; but remember that you must soon leave it to rot in a grave. You have obtained that dignity which raises you above others; but death will come and reduce you to the level of poorest peasant." - Excerpt from Consideration IV First Point by St Alphonsus Liguori in his work Preparation for Death By keeping the thought of death at the forefront of our minds it should help us to flee from sin and embrace the love of our eternal God so that when death comes it will not be bitter but rather sweet.

@Sola_Requiem 3 Hail Mary’s for Holy Purity everyday. Our Lady will look out for you and ask her Son to bestow the graces needed to get in good spiritual shape. Won’t happen overnight but in good time.

Going to confession because I relapsed. Please pray for me as I pray for you.

@VadeadIesum Thank you!

@1nJesusITrust Beautiful! I will keep this in my Prayers. St Michael is very interesting. There are a lot of modern stories (typically in wars) where St Michael intercedes for Christians.

Let me know how I can pray for you.

“Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us and on the whole world.”

Yes many Catholics will spout forth condemnation and is that the most charitable approach? No, obviously not. On the flip side you and many Protestants start off by making outrageous claims. I.e. Catholics worship Mary (we don’t) or Catholics think works can save you (we don’t think our works can save us) that are simply not true. I can at least respect people like Wes Huff or even Gavin Ortlund to a sense (even jf I don’t agree with them) because at least they try to engage Catholics in good faith. You and people like Taco don’t.

For many Catholics/Orthodox on X, instead of actually responding to the arguments Protestants put forward, they just attack the person, not the argument. It’s sad. Just like people did with Jesus, calling him “a glutton and a drunkard” (Matt 11:19) when they couldn’t answer him.

Charlie was a good man and was always charitable about Catholicism. A shame as I always thought he’d eventually become Catholic once he came to the realization that the Catholic Mass actually does bring people to the foot of the cross every single day. May the souls of the faithfully departed rest in peace.

@sola_chad Ya know funny you should quote Charlie saying that. Catholicism literally does exactly that at every Mass.

"Your goal should be to bring people to Jesus, not Catholicism … it should be to bring people to the cross." -Charlie Kirk

“For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.”

@EcciusMaximus We should never wish that anyone goes to Hell. Behind Taco is a troubled soul. Catholic Pebble is right in this case.

@Novanglus9 @PastorDeberny Check out what Jimmy Akin has to say about this (there’s two parts) open.spotify.com/episode/1nFiED… open.spotify.com/episode/0GkaKJ…

I’m having a hard time squaring it with physical evidence. I’m trying to keep an open mind to evidence, but I’m just not sure I find the evidence of young earth/global flood compelling. And that’s tough, my son is old enough to ask questions and I don’t want him having some faith crisis over pre-Genesis 11 material, but I also trust in scripture and scriptural authority. Any help here is appreciated, burying my head in the sand is not an option.

Always funny to me "Yeah we believe a person walked on water! But a global flood? That's where we draw the line!"

“The Lord is God, and he has given us light. Bind the festal procession with branches, up to the horns of the altar. You are my God, and I will give thanks to you; you are my God, I will extol you. O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.” - Psalm 118:27-29

Great post! Here’s some other Scripture passages to tack on! “You then, my child, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus; and what you have heard from me through many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will be able to teach others as well. Share in suffering like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.” - 2 Timothy 2:1-3 “Although I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink; instead I hope to come to you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete.” - 2 John 1:12 “About this we have much to say that is hard to explain, since you have become dull in understanding. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic elements of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food; for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.” - Hebrews 5:11-14 “First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” - 2 Peter 1:20-21 “and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures. You therefore, beloved, since you are forewarned, beware that you are not carried away with the error of the lawless and lose your own stability.” - 2 Peter 3:15-17

Paul told the Thessalonians to hold fast to traditions passed by word of mouth AND by letter. Protestants kept the letter and threw out the word of mouth. Consider the evidence: "Hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter." - 2 Thessalonians 2:15 "I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you." - 1 Corinthians 11:2 The New Testament itself references teachings not written in the text. John admits: "There are also many other things that Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written" (John 21:25). This isn't theoretical - it's documented history. Irenaeus (180 AD) confronted the Gnostics by appealing to this living apostolic tradition preserved in the churches: "The tradition of the apostles, made clear in all the world, is present in all the churches, enabling us to enumerate those whom the apostles established as bishops in the churches, and their successors down to our own time." The early Christians knew exactly what Paul meant. They didn't have the complete New Testament yet. They relied on both the apostolic letters AND the oral teaching transmitted by those who sat at the apostles' feet. Modern Protestantism claims Sola Scriptura while ignoring that Scripture itself commands Sacred Tradition. So here's the question that should haunt every Sola Scriptura advocate: If Paul commanded oral tradition alongside written Scripture, who gave you permission to discard half of what he commanded - the very half the early Church relied upon for their salvation for decades before the New Testament existed?

Even prior to the readings (OT, NT, and Gospel), the Catholic Mass is loaded with Scripture. Most of which is calling to mind our sinfulness, asking Christ for Mercy, and glorifying God. Here are some of those: Sign of the Cross: The priest begins: "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." - This comes directly from Matthew 28:19 (the Great Commission: "baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit"). Greeting: Examples: - "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." → From 2 Corinthians 13:14 (or 13:13 in some numbering). - "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." → Seen in Philippians 1:2, Ephesians 1:2, and similar Pauline greetings. - "The Lord be with you." → Rooted in Old Testament greetings like Ruth 2:4 ("The Lord be with you") and echoed in 2 Timothy 4:22 ("The Lord be with your spirit"). Penitential Act (including the Confiteor or other forms, followed by "Lord, have mercy"): This involves confessing sins and asking mercy. Phrases draw from various Scriptures, such as: - "I confess... that I have greatly sinned" → Echoes confessions like 1 Chronicles 21:8 or Baruch 3:2. - "Lord, have mercy" (Kyrie eleison) → Biblical pleas for mercy, e.g., Tobit 8:4, 1 Timothy 1:2 (grace, mercy, peace), and the repeated cries in the Gospels (e.g., blind men in Matthew 9:27, 15:22; the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15:22). It prepares the assembly to worthily hear God's Word. Gloria: This ancient hymn begins with the angels' song at Christ's birth: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to people of good will" → Directly from Luke 2:14. The rest praises God with biblical titles (e.g., "Lord God, heavenly King," "almighty Father," "Only Begotten Son," "Lamb of God" from John 1:29, "Holy One" from Revelation, "seated at the right hand of the Father" from Mark 16:19 and others).

@BreeSolstad Funny thing is, the Roman Catholic Church does not advocate for praying to Christ. It talks and Catholics continually talk about “praying to Mary”

“It was a demon because I have no other explanation & I want it to be true so I don’t have to face the reality of the true Christian faith I have erroneously rejected.” Demons totally heal fatal diseases, bring peace, call people to repentance & beg people to pray to Christ. 🤦‍♀️

@VadeadIesum Of course!

@1nJesusITrust I'll check it out, thanks for sharing

People who become obsessed with Revelation become insane, I honestly have seen this throughout my life. Do NOT focus on Revelation. Focus on the Gospel of Jesus and the sacraments of the church.

“I often attend upon the dying and through entreaties obtain for them trust in God’s mercy, and I implore God for an abundance of divine grace, which is always victorious. God’s mercy sometimes touches the sinner at the last moment in a wondrous and mysterious way. Outwardly, it seems as if everything were lost, but it is not so. The soul, illumined by a ray of God’s powerful final grace, turns to God in the last moment with such a power of love that, in an instant, it receives from God forgiveness of sin and punishment, while outwardly it shows no sign either of repentance or of contrition, because souls [at that stage] no longer react to external things. Oh, how beyond comprehension is God’s mercy! But – horror! – there are also souls who voluntarily and consciously reject and scorn this grace! Although a person is at the point of death, the merciful God gives the soul that interior vivid moment, so that if the soul is willing, it has the possibility of returning to God. But sometimes, the obduracy in souls is so great that consciously they choose hell; they [thus] make useless all the prayers that other souls offer to God for them and even the efforts of God Himself…..” - Entry 1698 of The Diary of St Faustina

“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” - John 20:30-31 “This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true. But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” - John 21:24-25 “I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions just as I handed them on to you.” - 1 Corinthians 11:2 “Although I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink; instead I hope to come to you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete.” - 2 John 1:12 “and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures. You therefore, beloved, since you are forewarned, beware that you are not carried away with the error of the lawless and lose your own stability.” - 2 Peter 3:15-17

I'm not anti-tradition. We all have traditions. But when we bind the consciences of Christians, tell them a certain tradition is "sacred," and anathematize those who, convinced by the testimony of Scripture, do not believe those traditions to be sacred, we are "making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down," according to Jesus. Don’t be like the Pharisees.

Yes! My wife and I had to wait 5 years after our first before conceiving and then after months of praying to St Gianna and praying the rosary daily while deployed, we conceived. I just knew it was a girl and we settled on the name Gianna after the saint who interceded for us. Then she was born on April 28th the feast of St Gianna!!

Be completely honest. Has prayer ever genuinely 'worked' for you?

“And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” - Romans 5:3-5

Our suffering isn’t meaningless. 2 Corinthians 4:17: “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”