ST. PAUL OF THE CROSS PARISH

Castle Shannon, PA

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Divine Mercy Holy Hour

- Join Us For Our Divine Mercy Holy Hour!
  Every week a Divine Mercy Holy Hour is held during Tuesday Eucharistic Adoration, in Saint Anne Church at 3:00 PM, "The Hour of Great Mercy!" Please consider joining us for this beautiful yet simple devotion through which many graces are offered for ourselves and our loved ones.
  
  The Holy Hour will be structured as follows:
  3:00 PM – Divine Mercy Chaplet offered before the Most Blessed Sacrament
  3:10 PM – Reading selection from St. Faustina’s Diary of a Soul
  3:15 PM – Brief Reflection
  3:20-3:45 PM – Silent Adoration
  3:45 PM – Conclude with the Litany of Divine Mercy
  
  For downloadable instructions on how to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet, click HERE.
- Why We Celebrate This Holy Hour
  Every year, Catholics celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday, which honors the love that Christ has for all of us, despite our sins that separate us from Him. Always celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter, the liturgy commemorates the Divine Mercy of Christ, as revealed to St. Maria Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun.
  At Saint Paul of the Cross Parish, we continue this tradition year-round with our special Divine Mercy Holy Hour every Tuesday and an annual parish-wide praying of the Divine Mercy Novena.
  Learn More About The Divine Mercy Novena
- The Divine Mercy Chaplet
  The Chaplet of Divine Mercy is recited using ordinary rosary beads of five decades. It is preceded by two opening prayers from the Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska and followed by a closing prayer.
  
  The Divine Mercy Chaplet was revealed to St. Maria Faustina Kowalska by Christ with this promise: “Encourage souls to say the chaplet which I have given you” (Diary, no. 1541). “Whoever will recite it will receive great mercy at the hour of death. … 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. I desire that the whole world know My infinite mercy” (Diary, no. 687).
- Saint Maria Faustina
  Born in 1905 in Glogowiec, Poland, St. Maria Faustina became a Sister of Our Lady of Mercy at the age of 20. In the 1930s, Jesus chose her to receive private revelations about His Divine Mercy. which she recorded in her Diary.
  
  Sister Maria Faustina, consumed by tuberculosis and by innumerable sufferings which she accepted as a voluntary sacrifice for sinners, died in Krakow at the age of just 33 in 1938. At the time, she had a reputation for unique spirituality and a close relationship with God. As the reports of the holiness of her life grew, so did devotion to the Divine Mercy. Today, her Diary has been translated into more than 20 languages. She was canonized by Pope St. John Paul II on April 30, 2000.
  
  In his book, Memory and Identity, published in 2005, St. John Paul II explains: "This was precisely the time when those ideologies of evil, Nazism and communism, were taking shape. Sister Faustina became the herald of the one message capable of off-setting the evil of those ideologies, that fact that God is mercy—the truth of the merciful Christ. And for this reason, when I was called to the See of Peter, I felt impelled to pass on those experiences of a fellow Pole that deserve a place in the treasury of the universal Church."
- The Image of The Divine Mercy
  In 1931, Jesus appeared to St. Faustina in a vision, with His right hand raised in a blessing and His left touching His garment above His heart. Red and white rays emanated from His heart, symbolizing the blood and water that were poured out for our salvation and our sanctification. The Lord requested that “Jesus, I trust in You” be inscribed under His image.
  
  As written in her Diary, Jesus promised St. Faustina: "By means of this image I shall grant many graces to souls. It is to be a reminder of the demands of My mercy, because even the strongest faith is of no avail without works" (Diary, no. 742).