Prayer to obtain grace through the intercession of Saint Faustina

Prayer to obtain grace through
the intercession of Saint Faustina

        O Jesus, You inspired Saint Faustina with profound veneration for Your boundless Mercy. Grant me through her intercession, if it be Your holy will, the grace ...for which I fervently pray. My sins render me unworthy of Your Mercy, but be mindful of Saint Faustina's spirit of sacrifice and self-denial, and reward her virtue by granting the petition which, with childlike confidence, I present to You through her intercession.

Our Father...,   Hail Mary...,   Glory...
Saint Faustina, pray for us.

Imprimatur
Franciszek Cardinal Macharski
Archbishop of Cracow
Cracow, January 20, 2000

Prayer to Saint Faustina by the Holy Father John Paul II

        And you, Faustina, a gift of God to our time, a gift from the land of Poland to the whole Church, obtain for us an awareness of the depth of Divine Mercy; help us to have a living experience of it and to bear witness to it among our brothers and sisters. May your message of light and hope spread throughout the world, spurring sinners to conversion, calming rivalries and hatred, and opening individuals and nations to the practice of brotherhood. Today, fixing our gaze with you on the Face of the Risen Christ, let us make our own your prayer of trusting abandonement and say with firm hope:"Jesus, I trust in You!".

Rome, April 30, 2000

http://www.faustyna.pl/en/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=316&Itemid=61

Hesed, Rahamim, and Justice of God - Excerpts from JPII's Dives in Misericordia ( New Translation)

Excerpts from  the new Translation of Encyclical Letter of the Holy Father John Paul II

On Divine Mercy

Dives in Misericordia Part II 

http://www.christendom-awake.org/pages/divinemercy/richinmercy2.htm

Mary, entering the house of Zechariah,magnifies the Lord with all her soul for “His mercy,” which “from generation to generation” is bestowed on those who fear Him. A little later, as she recalls the election of Israel, she proclaims the mercy which He who has chosen Israel holds “in remembrance” for all time (Cf. Lk 1:49-54).http://www.printeryhouse.org/ProdPage.asp?prod=M07

            In both places it is a case of hesed, i.e., the fidelity that God manifests to His own love for the people, fidelity to the promises that will find their definitive fulfillment precisely in the motherhood of the Mother of God (Cf. Lk 1:49-54).

 Afterwards, in the same house, when John the Baptist is born, his fatherZechariah blessed the God of Israel and glorifies the mercy God promised to our fathers and for “remembering” His holy covenant (Cf. Lk 1:72). Here too it is a case of mercy in the meaning of hesed, insofar as in the following sentences, in which Zechariah speaks of the “tender mercy of our God,” there is clearly expressed the second meaning, namely, rahamim (Latin translation: viscera misericordiae), which rather identifies God’s mercy with a mother’s love.

http://www.catholica.com.au/gc1/dg/021_dg_140308.php

icon of the birth of John th Baptist in the church at Ein Karem

   In His teaching, Christ Himself draws on this inheritance of mercy from the Old Testament, simplifies it and deepens it. This is most clearly seen in the parable of the Prodigal Son (Lk 15:14-32). Even though the word “mercy” is not used in the parable, the deepest meaning of divine mercy is described. The words of the Old Testament for mercy are not used, but the drama played out between the loving father and his two sons – a drama of love and prodigality – helps us to understand the “mystery of mercy.”

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“How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough to spare, but I perish here with hunger.” He measures himself by the measuring stick of the goods that he has lost and “has not,” against the goods that the hired hands “have” in his father’s house. These words express, above all, his attitude toward material goods; yet, under their surface is hidden the tragedy of lost dignity, the consciousness of squandered sonship.

Athanasios Clark

The Prodigal Son Orthodox Icon

http://www.eyekons.com/prodigal_son/portfolio_of_art............

 At first sight he seems to be acting because of hunger and poverty, yet his motive is permeated by a consciousness of deeper loss: to be a hired hand in his father’s house. This certainly is a great humiliation and shame. Nevertheless, the prodigal son is ready to undergo that humiliation and shame. He realizes that he no longer has any right except to be an employee in his father’s house. His decision is taken in full awareness of what he has already deserved and of what he can still have by right in accordance with the norms of justice. Exactly this reasoning shows that at the center of the prodigal son’s consciousness is found a sense of a lost dignity, a sense of that worth which comes from being a son of a father. And so, with his decision made, he sets out on his way.

  In the parable of the prodigal son, the word “justice” is not used even once, just as the word “mercy” is not used. But justice is related to love, and is seen as mercy, and described with great precision in the gospel parable. It becomes evident that love becomes mercy when it is necessary to cross the precise bounds of justice – precise and often too narrow. The prodigal son, having wasted everything he had received from his father, felt he deserved, after his return to work in his father’s house as a servant, to be earning a living and gradually building up a certain provision of material goods, but never in the amount he had before he departed. This would be demanded by the order of justice, especially since as son he not only squandered his portion of inheritance, which he received from the father, but he also touched his father and offended him by his whole conduct. Because this conduct had in his own eyes deprived him of dignity  as a son, it could not be a matter of indifference to the father. It had to hurt him. It had to involve him in some way. It was, after all, his own son, and that relationship could never be changed or destroyed by any kind of behavior. The prodigal son is aware of this; and this awareness makes him see clearly his lost dignity, and evaluate honestly his position, which he might still earn in his father’s house.

From Bl.John Paul II 's DIVES IN MISERICORDIA

I. HE WHO SEES ME SEES THE FATHER (cf. John 14:9)

1. The Revelation of Mercy

It is "God, who is rich in mercy" ¹ whom Jesus Christ has revealed to us as Father: it is His very Son who, in Himself, has manifested Him and made Him known to us.² Memorable in this regard is the moment when Philip, one of the twelve Apostles, turned to Christ and said: "Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied"; and Jesus replied: "Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me...? He who has seen me has seen the Father."³ These words were spoken during the farewell discourse at the end of the paschal supper, which was followed by the events of those holy days during which confirmation was to be given once and for all of the fact that "God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ."⁴

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Today I wish to say that openness to Christ, who as the Redeemer of the world fully reveals man himself," can only be achieved through an ever more mature reference to the Father and His love.

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In fact, revelation and faith teach us not only to meditate in the abstract upon the mystery of God as "Father of mercies," but also to have recourse to that mercy in the name of Christ and in union with Him. Did not Christ say that our Father, who "sees in secret,"¹⁷ is always waiting for us to have recourse to Him in every need and always waiting for us to study His mystery: the mystery of the Father and His love?¹⁸

I therefore wish these considerations to bring this mystery closer to everyone. At the same time I wish them to be a heartfelt appeal by the Church to mercy, which humanity and the modern world need so much. And they need mercy even though they often do not realize it.

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Christ, then, reveals God who is Father, who is "love," as St. John will express it in his first letter²²; Christ reveals God as "rich in mercy," as we read in St. Paul.²³ This truth is not just the subject of a teaching; it is a reality made present to us by Christ. Making the Father present as love and mercy is, in Christ's own consciousness, the fundamental touchstone of His mission as the Messiah; this is confirmed by the words that He uttered first in the synagogue at Nazareth and later in the presence of His disciples and of John the Baptist's messengers.

On the basis of this way of manifesting the presence of God who is Father, love and mercy, Jesus makes mercy one of the principal themes of His preaching. As is His custom, He first teaches "in parables," since these express better the very essence of things. It is sufficient to recall the parable of the prodigal son,²⁴ or the parable of the Good Samaritan,²⁵ but also - by contrast - the parable of the merciless servant.²⁶ There are many passages in the teaching of Christ that manifest love-mercy under some ever-fresh aspect. We need only consider the Good Shepherd who goes in search of the lost sheep, ²⁷ or the woman who sweeps the house in search of the lost coin.²⁸ The Gospel writer who particularly treats of these themes in Christ's teaching is Luke, whose Gospel has earned the title of "the Gospel of mercy."

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9. Mother of Mercy

These words of the Church at Easter re-echo in the fullness of their prophetic content the words that Mary uttered during her visit to Elizabeth, the wife of Zechariah: "His mercy is...from generation to generation."¹⁰¹ At the very moment of the Incarnation, these words open up a new perspective of salvation history. After the resurrection of Christ, this perspective is new on both the historical and the eschatological level. From that time onwards there is a succession of new generations of individuals in the immense human family, in ever-increasing dimensions; there is also a succession of new generations of the People of God, marked with the Sign of the Cross and of the resurrection and "sealed"¹⁰² with the sign of the Paschal Mystery of Christ, the absolute revelation of the mercy that Mary proclaimed on the threshold of her kinswoman's house: "His mercy is...from generation to generation."¹⁰³

Mary, then, is the one who has the deepest knowledge of the mystery of God's mercy. She knows its price, she knows how great it is. In this sense, we call her the Mother of mercy: our Lady of mercy, or Mother of divine mercy; in each one of these titles there is a deep theological meaning, for they express the special preparation of her soul, of her whole personality, so that she was able to perceive, through the complex events, first of Israel, then of every individual and of the whole of humanity, that mercy of which "from generation to generation"¹⁰⁵ people become sharers according to the eternal design of the most Holy Trinity.

The above titles which we attribute to the Mother of God speak of her principally, however, as the Mother of the crucified and risen One; as the One who, having obtained mercy in an exceptional way, in an equally exceptional way "merits" that mercy throughout her earthly life and, particularly, at the foot of the cross of her Son; and finally as the one who, through her hidden and at the same time incomparable sharing in the messianic mission of her Son, was called in a special way to bring close to people that love which He had come to reveal: the love that finds its most concrete expression vis-a-vis the suffering, the poor, those deprived of their own freedom, the blind, the oppressed and sinners, just as Christ spoke of them in the words of the prophecy of Isaiah, first in the synagogue at Nazareth¹⁰⁶ and then in response to the question of the messengers of John the Baptist.¹⁰⁷

It was precisely this "merciful" love, which is manifested above all in contact with moral and physical evil, that the heart of her who was the Mother of the crucified and risen One shared in singularly and exceptionally - that Mary shared in. In her and through her, this love continues to be revealed in the history of the Church and of humanity. This revelation is especially fruitful because in the Mother of God it is based upon the unique tact of her maternal heart, on her particular sensitivity, on her particular fitness to reach all those who most easily accept the merciful love of a mother. This is one of the great life-giving mysteries of Christianity, a mystery intimately connected with the mystery of the Incarnation.

"The motherhood of Mary in the order of grace," as the Second Vatican Council explains, "lasts without interruption from the consent which she faithfully gave at the annunciation and which she sustained without hesitation under the cross, until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect. In fact, being assumed into heaven she has not laid aside this office of salvation but by her manifold intercession she continues to obtain for us the graces of eternal salvation. By her maternal charity, she takes care of the brethren of her Son who still journey on earth surrounded by dangers and difficulties, until they are led into their blessed home."¹⁰⁸

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15. The Church Appeals to the Mercy of God

The Church proclaims the truth of God's mercy revealed in the crucified and risen Christ, and she professes it in various ways. Furthermore, she seeks to practice mercy towards people through people, and she sees in this an indispensable condition for solicitude for a better and "more human" world, today and tomorrow. However, at no time and in no historical period-especially at a moment as critical as our own-can the Church forget the prayer that is a cry for the mercy of God amid the many forms of evil which weigh upon humanity and threaten it. Precisely this is the fundamental right and duty of the Church in Christ Jesus, her right and duty towards God and towards humanity. The more the human conscience succumbs to secularization, loses its sense of the very meaning of the word "mercy," moves away from God and distances itself from the mystery of mercy, the more the Church has the right and the duty to appeal to the God of mercy "with loud cries."¹³⁵ These "loud cries" should be the mark of the Church of our times, cries uttered to God to implore His mercy, the certain manifestation of which she professes and proclaims as having already come in Jesus crucified and risen, that is, in the Paschal Mystery. It is this mystery which bears within itself the most complete revelation of mercy, that is, of that love which is more powerful than death, more powerful than sin and every evil, the love which lifts man up when he falls into the abyss and frees him from the greatest threats.

Modern man feels these threats. What has been said above in this regard is only a rough outline. Modern man often anxiously wonders about the solution to the terrible tensions which have built up in the world and which entangle humanity. And if at times he lacks the courage to utter the word "mercy," or if in his conscience empty of religious content he does not find the equivalent, so much greater is the need for the Church to utter his word, not only in her own name but also in the name of all the men and women of our time.

Everything that I have said in the present document on mercy should therefore be continually transformed into an ardent prayer: into a cry that implores mercy according to the needs of man in the modern world. May this cry be full of that truth about mercy which has found such rich expression in Sacred Scripture and in Tradition, as also in the authentic life of faith of countless generations of the People of God. With this cry let us, like the sacred writers, call upon the God who cannot despise anything that He has made,¹³⁶ the God who is faithful to Himself, to His fatherhood and His love. And, like the prophets, let us appeal to that love which has maternal characteristics and which, like a mother, follows each of her children, each lost sheep, even if they should number millions, even if in the world evil should prevail over goodness, even if contemporary humanity should deserve a new "flood" on account of its sins, as once the generation of Noah did. Let us have recourse to that fatherly love revealed to us by Christ in His messianic mission, a love which reached its culmination in His cross, in His death and resurrection. Let us have recourse to God through Christ, mindful of the words of Mary's Magnificat, which proclaim mercy "from generation to generation." Let us implore God's mercy for the present generation. May the Church which, following the example of Mary, also seeks to be the spiritual mother of mankind, express in this prayer her maternal solicitude and at the same time her confident love, that love from which is born the most burning need for prayer.

Let us offer up our petitions, directed by the faith, by the hope, and by the charity which Christ has planted in our hearts. This attitude is likewise love of God, whom modern man has sometimes separated far from himself, made extraneous to himself, proclaiming in various ways that God is "superfluous." This is, therefore, love of God, the insulting rejection of whom by modern man we feel profoundly, and we are ready to cry out with Christ on the cross: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."¹³⁷ At the same time it is love of people, of all men and women without any exception or division: without difference of race, culture, language, or world outlook, without distinction between friends and enemies. This is love for people-it desires every true good for each individual and for every human community, every family, every nation, every social group, for young people, adults, parents, the elderly-a love for everyone, without exception. This is love, or rather an anxious solicitude to ensure for each individual every true good and to remove and drive away every sort of evil.

And, if any of our contemporaries do not share the faith and hope which lead me, as a servant of Christ and steward of the mysteries of God,¹³⁸ to implore God's mercy for humanity in this hour of history, let them at least try to understand the reason for my concern. It is dictated by love for man, for all that is human and which, according to the intuitions of many of our contemporaries, is threatened by an immense danger. The mystery of Christ, which reveals to us the great vocation of man and which led me to emphasize in the encyclical Redemptor hominis his incomparable dignity, also obliges me to proclaim mercy as God's merciful love, revealed in that same mystery of Christ. It likewise obliges me to have recourse to that mercy and to beg for it at this difficult, critical phase of the history of the Church and of the world, as we approach the end of the second millennium.

In the name of Jesus Christ crucified and risen, in the spirit of His messianic mission, enduring in the history of humanity, we raise our voices and pray that the Love which is in the Father may once again be revealed at this stage of history, and that, through the work of the Son and Holy Spirit, it may be shown to be present in our modern world and to be more powerful than evil: more powerful than sin and death. We pray for this through the intercession of her who does not cease to proclaim "mercy...from generation to generation," and also through the intercession of those for whom there have been completely fulfilled the words of the Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."¹³⁹

In continuing the great task of implementing the Second Vatican Council, in which we can rightly see a new phase of the self- realization of the Church-in keeping with the epoch in which it has been our destiny to live-the Church herself must be constantly guided by the full consciousness that in this work it is not permissible for her, for any reason, to withdraw into herself. The reason for her existence is, in fact, to reveal God, that Father who allows us to "see" Him in Christ.¹⁴⁰ No matter how strong the resistance of human history may be, no matter how marked the diversity of contemporary civilization, no matter how great the denial of God in the human world, so much the greater must be the Church's closeness to that mystery which, hidden for centuries in God, was then truly shared with man, in time, through Jesus Christ.

With my apostolic blessing.

Given in Rome, at St. Peter's, on the thirtieth day of November, the First Sunday of Advent, in the year 1980, the third of the pontificate.

JOHN PAUL II 

In the name of Jesus Christ crucified and risen, in the spirit of His messianic mission, enduring in the history of humanity, we raise our voices and pray that the Love which is in the Father may once again be revealed at this stage of history, and that, through the work of the Son and Holy Spirit, it may be shown to be present in our modern world and to be more powerful than evil: more powerful than sin and death. We pray for this through the intercession of her who does not cease to proclaim "mercy...from generation to generation," and also through the intercession of those for whom there have been completely fulfilled the words of the Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."¹³⁹

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Interpretation of the Prayer - Lord, have Mercy!

http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php?topic=26837.0

An Excerpt from The Philokalia, Vol. 5

On the importance of awareness and understanding in prayer

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me! And more concisely: Lord, have mercy! These prayers have been bequeathed to Christians from the time of the Apostles and it was decreed that they should constantly use these invocations, as also they do. However, while doing so very few now know the meaning of: Lord, have mercy! Therefore they invoke fruitlessly. They cry: Lord, have mercy! but do not receive mercy from the Lord because they themselves do not know what they are seeking.

And so we must know: What kind of mercy from the Lord Jesus is this? What Kind? Every kind: all that is needed by us in our present fallen state is in His right hand. For He, from the time when He was incarnated and became man, and endured such sufferings, and by the shedding of His most holy blood redeemed man from the hands of the devil - from that time HE has become in some special way the Lord and Sovereign of human nature. Thus everything of ours is now in his hands.

The Lord was even before his incarnation, from the beginning, Lord of all, seen and unseen, as their Creator and Maker. According to their being so it is and will be, but not according to the free activity of reasonable creatures. Devils and, after them, men, did not want of their own accord, to have Him as their Lord and Sovereign, and they detached themselves from Him who was the Ruler of all. For the All-gracious God, having created men and Angels independent and endowed them win reason, does not want to destroy this independence of their and rule over them by force, against their will. Therefore those of them who wish to be under the power and rule of God, over them He rules and those he defends, but those who do not wish it, those He leaves to do their own will as independent. That is why Adam too when, seduced by the apostate devil, himself became an apostate from God and did not wish to obey His commandments, He left him to his free-will, not wishing to rule over him domineeringly. But the envious devil, having seduced him in the beginning, did not cease to seduce him further, until he had made him by his irrationality like senseless cattle and until he began to live like unreasoning animals.

Then the most merciful God took pity on him and bowed the heavens and came down to earth and became man for man's sake, and having redeemed him by His most pure blood, He provided a saving way of life for him, showed him in the holy Gospel how to please God, regenerated and recreated him by divine baptism, instituted heavenly nourishment for him in the most pure mysteries and, to speak briefly, with the sublimest wisdom found means how He could be inseparably with man and man with Him so that the devil should have no more place in man. But even after this He nevertheless forces no one but leaves all free to accept the salvation that is offered to them or to perish. And so it goes: Some are saved; but others are negligent about salvation, some of whom do not believe the Gospel at all, while others believe but do not live according to the Gospel.

Those who are now Christians, after so many gifts of grace, after so many divine benefits, have again been seduced by the devil and by the action of the world and the flesh have been separated from God and have fallen under the yoke of slavery to sin and the devil, doing his will, but have not yet become quite insensible so as not to feel the evil that they have suffered, and understand their mistake and acknowledge the slavery into which they have fallen, but they do not see in themselves the power to be delivered from it - those have recourse to God and cry: Lord, have mercy, that the most merciful Lord may pity them and have mercy on them and accept them as the prodigal son and again grant them His divine grace and deliver them from slavery to sin, banish the devils from them and restore their freedom that in this way they may be able to live the rest of their life in a manner pleasing to God and keep the Divine commandments.

And so those Christians who with such an aim cry, Lord, have mercy! are certainly granted the Divine mercy and receive grace to be delivered from slavery to sin and be saved. But those who have not at all the above thoughts and do not recognise the misery of their position and their slavery to the will of the flesh and worldly habits, and have not even time to think about their slavery, but without any such aim, simply from habit cry, Lord have mercy! - how can these receive the Divine mercy: and especially such amazing and infinite mercy? It is better for such people not to receive it than to receive it and lose it again, for then there would be a double sin.

I shall now explain to you by examples also. Imagine to yourself a man poor and destitute who wishes to receive alms from some rich person. What does he say when he comes to the rich person? Something like: "Have mercy on me! Pity my poverty and set my life in order." Or someone has a debt and has nothing to pay it with. Wishing to be delivered from this burden he comes to the decision to ask his creditor to forgive him his debt. He approaches him and what does he say? Also simply: "Have mercy on me! Pity my poverty and forgive me the debt that I owe you." Similarly, when anyone is at fault in some matter before another and wishes to receive his forgiveness, what does he do? He comes to the person against whom he has sinned and says: "Have mercy of me! Forgive me for what I did against you."

All such people know what they are asking for and why they are asking, and they receive their petitions according to circumstances, and what they receive they turn to good account for themselves.

Now take on the other hand a sinner who is spiritually poor and in debt before God and has frequently offended Him. If he cries as if to God: Have mercy on Me! but meanwhile does not understand what he is saying and why he is speaking, and does not even know what that mercy consists of which he wishes to receive from God and the use of it to him, but simply from habit cries: Lord, have mercy! then how can God give him mercy when he cannot even recognise what he has received and therefore will not turn his attention to it and will make ill use of it or will augment still more that by which he became a sinner?

The mercy of God is nothing else but the grace of the Holy Spirit which we sinners must ask from God, unceasingly crying to Him: Have mercy on me! Show Thy mercy, my Lord, to me a sinner, in the pitiful state in which I am, and accept me again into Thy grace. Give me the Spirit of power that He may strengthen me in resisting the temptations of the devil and my sinful bad habits. Give me the Spirit of Counsel that I may become prudent and come to feeling and amend my life. Give me the Spirit of fear, that I may fear to offend Thee, and may fulfil Thy commandments. Give me the Spirit of peace, that I may guard the peace of my soul, and gather all my reasonings and be quiet and untroubled by thoughts. Give me the Spirit of purity, that He may keep me pure from all defilement. Give me the Spirit of meekness, that I may be gentle-minded in my relations with my Christian brethren and restrained from anger. Give me the Spirit of humility, that I may not think highly of myself and that I may not be proud.

Whoever knows and feels how necessary is all that has been said and, asking it of the most merciful God, cries: Lord, have mercy! will surely receive what he asks and be granted the mercy of God and His grace. But whoever knows nothing of what we have said and merely from habit cries: Lord, have mercy! for him it is not possible to receive any mercy from God. For he had already previously received many mercies from God but he was unaware of it and did not thank God who gave him them. He received the Divine mercy when he was created and became a man. He received mercy when he was recreated in baptism and became an Orthodox Christian. He receive mercy when he was delivered from so many perils of soul and body which he experience in life. He received the Divine mercy every time he was granted to partake of the most pure Mysteries. He receive the mercy of God every time he sinned before God and grieved Him by His sins, and was not destroyed and not punished as was due. He received the Divine mercy when so many different benefits were bestowed on him by God, but either he was not aware of it or he forgot. How can such a Christian receive further mercy from God when he does not know and does not feel that he has received so many mercies from Him? And now even if he cries: Lord, have mercy, he does not know what he is saying and pronounces these words without any thought or aim, but simply from habit.

God's Mercy
Sirach 50

Sirach 50: 22 - 24
22	And now bless the God of all, who in every way does great things; who exalts our days from birth, and deals with us according to his mercy.
23	May he give us gladness of heart, and grant that peace may be in our days in Israel, as in the days of old.
24	May he entrust to us his mercy! And let him deliver us in our days!

Sirach 51 :3,29

3 you were my helper. In line with your abundant mercy and your great name, you rescued me from grinding teeth prepared to devour me, from the power of those who wanted to take my life, from the many troubles that I have had,

29 May your whole being take delight in God's mercy, and may you never be ashamed when you praise him.

Psalm 89:2, 28

For I have said, Mercy shall be built up for ever: thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens.

My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him.