The Divine Mercy Chaplet and Eucharistic Adoration
Eucharistic Apostles of The Divine Mercy have for their declared mission the foremost purpose of proclaiming the truth of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist: Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, as solemnly defined by the Council of Trent, and of promoting Perpetual Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament along with the hourly offering of The Divine Mercy Chaplet for the dying, insofar as it is possible for them to do so.
Their secondary purpose is to bring to a hurting world the consoling Divine Mercy Message and Devotion, revealed to the Church through Saint Faustina Kowalska in Poland in the 1930's.
One of the principal elements of The Divine Mercy Devotion is the Divine Mercy Chaplet.
A form of prayer taught to St. Faustina by Our Lord Himself, the Chaplet is significant because it brings together the sacrifice of the Lord's Passion and of the Most Holy Eucharist. This accounts for the powerful effects attributed to its use, as promised by the Savior through St. Faustina, the "Apostle" and "Secretary" of His mercy.
The principal prayer of the Chaplet alludes to the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar: "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." The accompanying prayer declares, "For the sake of [that is, out of regard for] His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world," which alludes to the Holy Sacrifice of the Cross. The two most significant moments of our Lord's mission on earth, nonetheless, are in reality two parts of a single act ¬Christ's sacrifice of Himself on our behalf. The one part constitutes the essence of the sacrifice, and that took place at the Last Supper during the institution of the Eucharist, when with His own hands Jesus offered His Body and His Blood; the other part constitutes the external ceremony, when Jesus was nailed to a cross and died upon it (see Diary, 684).
The Opening Prayer of the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, which is also the prayer most commonly used just before the celebrant blesses people with the Blessed Sacrament at the close of Benediction Services, clearly declares that the Eucharist is the memorial of Christ's suffering and death. For Christians, the word "memorial" does not mean an action of our mind, a mere "calling to mind," or "remembering," but, in the case of Christ's sacrificial suffering and death, it means the making present and experiencing, here and now, of the spiritual effects of that sacrifice upon us (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1366). The Last Supper and Calvary are made present to us at one and the same time whenever we participate in Holy Mass or Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament.
To be more precise, however, what actually happens at the Mass is that the participants are taken out of the dimension of earthly space and time, as we experience it, and are brought into the dimension of time from God's perspective. Theologians call this divine perspective, God's "eternal now." Simply put, it means that God sees and acts through everything that ever happened, is happening, or will be happening, in one and the same instant. In other words, all times and places are present before Him at once. Christ's one Sacrifice, at the Last Supper and on the Cross, is therefore eternally present before God, and its effects can be applied by Him to any point of time in history — past, present, or future.
Now, with regard to what has just been stated, what is the significance of the Divine Mercy Chaplet?
Saint Paul's Letter to the Hebrews (see 7:27 and 9:14) assures us that the salvation of humankind was accomplished by Jesus of Nazareth when, through the eternal Spirit, He offered Himself without blemish to God in our place and for us. Through the eternal Spirit, therefore, Christ's sacrifice was taken out of space and time into the eternal now, from where it affects every point of history, past, present and future.
As Jesus entered the heavenly Holy of Holies with the offering of His own Blood (life), He was "made perfect." In other words, He was constituted the Great High Priest over God's Holy Temple, and we, who believe in and obey Him, have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (see Heb 10:10). The result is that He has made perfect forever — that is, constituted as priests — those who are being made holy (see Heb 10:14). As such, in and with Christ our Great High Priest, we are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (see 1 Pet 2:5). These spiritual sacrifices are sacrifices of praise, the fruit of lips that confess Jesus' name (see Heb 13:15).
As Eucharistic Apostles of The Divine Mercy, then, we need to be keenly aware of what all this means when we pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet. In the first place, our prayer becomes a spiritual sacrifice, the fruit of lips that acknowledge Jesus' name and all it stands for. As we pray: "For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world," we are not begging God to grant something He might be holding back from us, but offering a sacrifice of praise, we are acknowledging, affirming, acclaiming Him as the Merciful One who has in Christ, once-for-all, granted us all that we need to fulfill His purposes for us. We trust in His merciful providence concerning every instant and every facet of our lives.
All the more, then, it is evident, that as we pray the principal prayer of the Chaplet: "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," we stand with and in our Great High Priest at the Father's heavenly throne and altar in the eternal "now," and with Jesus we are able to direct the saving effects of His atoning sacrifice to anyone or any situation in the past, present or future!
Christians generally tend to limit the truth of salvation to the experience of having their sins forgiven, whereas the grand, all-inclusive word, salvation, encompasses a great number of blessings which God in His mercy has made available through the
sacrifice of Jesus for all who obey Him What took place at the Cross is what the liturgy calls the "marvelous exchange." The following are the main areas of spiritual and material benefits provided by Jesus for His Body of believers:
• Jesus took upon Himself our punishment that we might be forgiven (Is 53:4-5; Mt 8:16-17; 1 P 2:24).
• Jesus was wounded that we might be healed (Is 53:5; 1P 2:24).
• Jesus was made sin for us that in Him we might become the (righteousness of God (Is 53:10; 2 Cor 5:21).
• Jesus became poor for our sakes, that we might share His abundance (2 Cor 8:9; 9:8; Acts 20:35).
• Jesus bore our shame that we might share His glory (Mt 27:35¬44; Heb 2:10; 12:2).
• Jesus endured our rejection that we might have His acceptance with the Father (Mt 27:46 and 50; Eph 1:5-6).
• Jesus was made a curse that we might enter into the blessing (Gal 3:13-14).
Other benefits are only different facets of these principle ones.
As we pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet for ourselves or for others, since all the above and more are consonant with the will of God for us, we can be most powerfully instrumental in calling down these blessings on every person and situation or need. Our Lord promised through St. Faustina: "Through the Chaplet you will obtain everything, if what you ask for is compatible with my will" (Diary, 1731).
This will be all the more true as Eucharistic Apostles of The Divine Mercy offer up the Chaplet hourly for the dying, especially during the Hour of Great Mercy, and during periods of Eucharistic Adoration. Our Lord urged St. Faustina to do so on numerous occasions. There are at least 35 entries in her Diary dealing with prayers for the dying, many of them encouraging the use of the Chaplet for that purpose. For example:
• At the hour of their death, I defend as My own glory every soul that will say this chaplet; or when others say it for a dying person, the indulgence is the same. When this chaplet is said by the bedside of a dying person, God's anger is placated, unfathomable mercy envelops the soul, and the very depths of My tender mercy are moved for the sake of the sorrowful Passion of My Son (Diary, 811).
• Say unceasingly the chaplet that I have taught you. Whoever will recite it 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, 687)
• My daughter, encourage souls to say the chaplet that I have given to you. It pleases Me to grant everything they 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 (Diary, 1541).
• My daughter, help Me to save souls. You will go to a dying sinner, and you will continue to recite the chaplet, and in this way you will obtain for him trust in My mercy, for he is already in despair (Diary, 1797).
Scripture
John 6 48-56
48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread* which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh." 52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"* 53 So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; 54 he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
55 For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. 56 He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.
Catechism of the Catholic Church
1366 The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its memorial and because it applies its fruit: [Christ], our Lord and God, was once and for all to offer himself to God the Father by his death on the altar of the cross, to accomplish there an everlasting redemption. But because his priesthood was not to end with his death, at the Last Supper “on the night when he was betrayed,” [he wanted] to leave to his beloved spouse the Church a visible sacrifice (as the nature of man demands) by which the bloody sacrifice which he was to accomplish once for all on the cross would be re-presented, its memory perpetuated until the end of the world, and its salutary power be applied to the forgiveness of the sins we daily commit.
1394 As bodily nourishment restores lost strength, so the Eucharist strengthens our charity, which tends to be weakened in daily life; and this living charity wipes away venial sins. By giving himself to us Christ revives our love and enables us to break our disordered attachments to creatures and root ourselves in him: Since Christ died for us out of love, when we celebrate the memorial of his death at the moment of sacrifice we ask that love may be granted to us by the coming of the Holy Spirit. We humbly pray that in the strength of this love by which Christ willed to die for us, we, by receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, may be able to consider the world as crucified for us, and to be ourselves as crucified to the world.... Having received the gift of love, let us die to sin and live for God.
1397 The Eucharist commits us to the poor. To receive in truth the Body and Blood of Christ given up for us, we must recognize Christ in the poorest, his brethren: You have tasted the Blood of the Lord, yet you do not recognize your brother,.... You dishonor this table when you do not judge worthy of sharing your food someone judged worthy to take part in this meal.... God freed you from all your sins and invited you here, but you have not become more merciful.