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Why should we pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet?

Growing up, I wasn’t into praying the rosary or any type of meditative prayer.  Give me a few rote prayers and I was good to go.  While in college my prayer life began to change, for the better – but still no rosary. That would come a few years later.  Then, in the year 2000, Pope St. John Paul II canonized a polish nun, St. Maria “Faustina” Kowalska, and granted universal observance of the Feast of Divine Mercy to be celebrated annually on the Second Sunday of Easter.  Up until then, I’d never heard of Divine Mercy nor the Divine Mercy Chaplet.

The Divine Mercy Chaplet is a beautiful prayer (utilizing the rosary beads) that was composed by our Lord Himself to help foster devotion to His Divine Mercy. He taught it to St. Faustina in 1935, in one of his many private revelations to her.  Jesus conveyed our need to ask for His mercy, to be merciful ourselves, and to trust in Him completely.  While it was the apparition of Jesus to St. Faustina who shared in her diary God’s loving mercy toward all people, especially sinners, it would be Pope St. John Paul II’s devotion that moved me from indifference to participant.

I picked up a copy of St. Faustina’s diary, over 700 pages.   I read about the devotions connected with Divine Mercy: the promises, the novena, and the Chaplet. I discovered what Jesus had to say about praying the Chaplet.

“Say unceasingly the Chaplet that I have taught you. Whoever will recite it, they will receive great mercy at the hour of death. Priests will recommend it to sinners as their last hope of salvation. Even if there were a sinner most hardened, if he were to recite this chaplet only once, he would receive grace from My infinite mercy.” (Diary entry 687)  

While I don’t think of myself as a hardened sinner, I do admit that I am indeed a sinner and in need of His Divine Mercy.

Then on another occasion Jesus told St. Faustina,

“It pleases me to grant everything souls ask of me by saying the chaplet. When hardened sinners say it, I will fill their souls with peace, and the hour of their death will be a happy one. Write this for the benefit of distressed souls; when a soul sees and realizes the gravity of its sins, when the whole abyss of the misery into which it immersed itself is displayed before its eyes, let it not despair, but with trust, let it throw itself into the arms of My mercy, as a child into the arms of its beloved mother. Tell them no soul that has called upon My mercy has been disappointed or brought to shame…Write that when they say this Chaplet in the presence of the dying, I will stand between My father and the dying person, not as the Just Judge but as the Merciful Savior.” (Dairy entry 1541)

I am not always faithful in praying the Chaplet, but I do try to make it part of my repertoire of prayers.  I pray my rosary daily, meditate on scripture, say my morning and evening prayers, and when 3 pm comes around – I try to be faithful (remember) and pray a Divine Mercy Chaplet.  Jesus, I trust in you.