The John-Henry Westen Show

00:00:00.000 He basically told St. Faustina, you, St. Faustina, will prepare the world for my final coming.

00:00:05.900 Now, this was 1931. So 90, what is that, 92 years ago, okay? And he said, you will prepare the world

00:00:13.140 for my final coming. And so he did something incredible. He gave five new channels of grace

00:00:21.120 that we collectively call the devotion of divine mercy.

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00:01:55.880 with all of us at LifeSite News. Father Chris Alar, welcome to the program. Thank you so much. I've

00:02:03.580 always been a big fan of your show, so it's an honor to be here. Thank you. Praise God. Father,

00:02:08.100 let's begin as we always do with the sign of the cross. Father, if you could lead us for us.

00:02:11.860 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. And God bless the show and

00:02:19.240 all the listeners who are open to God's mercy, especially this time of year with Divine Mercy

00:02:24.120 Sunday. So God bless you all. Amen. Thank you for that, Father. And we're airing just before Divine

00:02:31.360 Mercy Sunday. So this is a great opportunity for you all to learn about Divine Mercy. And Father,

00:02:37.940 if I can jump right in, because I think there's a fascinating aspect about Divine Mercy, about

00:02:44.240 St. Faustina, who gave us the messages from our Lord about Divine Mercy, and it's tied to abortion

00:02:52.640 specifically. If you could give us that detail, please. Well, what's fascinating is many people

00:02:58.160 know the prayer, the Divine Mercy Chaplet, and they're very familiar with the praying of the Divine

00:03:04.300 Mercy Chaplet. But what few people know is that actually Jesus gave that prayer to St. Faustina,

00:03:12.080 we believe, to pray against abortion. And in the diary of St. Faustina, she does talk about the pains

00:03:20.420 that she incurred in the womb that she had. She said it was the most excruciating pain

00:03:27.240 that she had ever encountered in her entire life. And she specifically wrote that they were between

00:03:34.920 the hours of 8 and 11 p.m. there in Poland. Now, ironically, Poland at the time was one of the

00:03:43.620 leading centers of abortion in all of Europe, in the city specifically of Warsaw. And St. Faustina

00:03:52.160 wrote about her pains that you would feel very much descriptive of like an abortion. And what

00:03:59.520 happened was in her words of prophecy, you know, and I think this is what's most telling, is our Lord

00:04:09.240 said that he was going to destroy one of the most beautiful cities in Poland, which Warsaw was at the

00:04:15.620 time. And he gave her, though, the words of this prayer to pray when she saw the angel ready to

00:04:24.060 strike. And so the angel that was ready to strike, she was able to hold back the hand of this angel

00:04:31.180 through her prayer. Now, what was that prayer? Jesus was giving her the words, and the words were the

00:04:37.720 words of the Divine Mercy Chaplet. And so later, her confessor by the name of Blessed Michael

00:04:44.660 Sapochniko was asked, this is not in the diary, but he was asked what it was that was causing the

00:04:53.740 angel to strike at the city of this beautiful city, which she said was Warsaw. And Blessed Michael

00:05:01.560 Sapochniko came right out and asked her, what was it about the city of Warsaw that caused the angel

00:05:08.780 to be prepared to destroy it? And you saved through the prayer of this chaplet, and she said abortion.

00:05:17.880 Wow, that's unbelievable. Now, Father, was there any significance as well between the hours of 8 to 11

00:05:23.160 that she said she experienced that pain?

00:05:25.260 Thank you. That is actually the time that the clinics there in Warsaw performed most abortions.

00:05:33.160 And so they have a direct record of this. And so the 8 to 11 tie is unbelievable because it was the time

00:05:45.840 on record that a vast majority of the abortions were performed at the clinics in Warsaw. And St.

00:05:54.420 Faustina said that these were the horrible pains. Now, our Lord went even so far as to say,

00:06:00.380 and she recorded this in the diary, that the pains were the pains that were experienced

00:06:06.040 by mothers who murdered their child in the womb. So this is actually mentioned in the diary of St.

00:06:12.620 Faustina. So we know the direct relation and correlation between the chaplet and the Divine

00:06:19.460 Mercy chaplet and abortion. Wow. Wow. So let's do a bit of a rewind now. For those folks who are

00:06:27.140 watching who aren't totally sure of Divine Mercy, what it's all about, the prayer, what it is,

00:06:32.480 if you can give us a little sort of nutshell version of that.

00:06:36.200 Divine Mercy, Jesus appeared to a little humble Polish nun in the 1930s named St. Faustina at the

00:06:43.660 time, Sister Faustina Kowalska. This was a nun that was a cloistered nun in Poland prior just to World

00:06:51.900 War II. And our Lord appeared to her and basically gave her some incredible revelations, which are all

00:06:58.320 fully approved by the church. There was some confusion with a faulty translation where there

00:07:04.700 was a slight ban from the 1959 to 1978. Once that translation was corrected and clarified, it's fully

00:07:13.560 endorsed. In fact, now on the universal calendar of the church, the Feast of Divine Mercy.

00:07:19.480 But Jesus told St. Faustina that Divine Mercy is mankind's last hope for salvation. He said,

00:07:28.940 if you do not pass through the doors of my mercy, you must pass through the doors of my justice. And

00:07:34.500 John Henry, as I always say, I don't know about everybody else, but I'm not making it through the

00:07:39.720 doors of justice. I need the doors of mercy. And so, however, we've got to be very careful. When we say

00:07:45.800 mercy, we're not talking about license, we're not talking about false mercy, which means we can do

00:07:52.280 whatever we want, whenever we want. No. God's justice is still very prevalent. What His mercy

00:07:59.140 allows us to do is that if we are striving and still repenting, going to confession, attempting to

00:08:06.920 change our lives, to rectify our wills, He gives us the grace to do that. And so, in a nutshell, what

00:08:15.240 Divine Mercy is, is not new. The message of Divine Mercy goes back to the Garden of Adam and Eve. You

00:08:22.700 know, when Adam and Eve sinned, God could have and should have crushed us out of existence because

00:08:29.560 we didn't listen, we didn't obey, and God had mercy. Why and how? Well, right away in the garden after

00:08:38.200 the fall, what did God do? He gave us the promise of a Savior and the gift of a mother. And that was

00:08:46.180 mercy. And so, Divine Mercy is not new. It's, as Pope Benedict would say, it's the message of Divine

00:08:55.020 Mercy is the nucleus of the gospel. It really is. We always say ABCs. Know your ABCs. A, ask for God's

00:09:03.700 mercy. You know, the Bible says if you don't repent and ask for forgiveness, you can't enter the kingdom

00:09:08.400 of God. B is be merciful to each other. This is the basis of our Catholic faith. Love God, love your

00:09:16.940 neighbor. You know, Matthew 25, the sheep and the goats tell us that if, you know, we don't be

00:09:24.040 merciful to our brethren, we will be cast into the eternal flame. So, it is serious directive from

00:09:34.540 our Lord. And then C, ABC, is very interesting. It's completely trust in God's mercy. Now, people say

00:09:44.740 trust. Okay, how is that? Well, trust is the one-word description of St. Faustina's entire message.

00:09:50.800 And I think, John Henry, the best way to say the importance of trust is this. The entire Bible

00:09:58.460 and the entire diary of St. Faustina is based on trust. And St. Faustina summarized it well.

00:10:05.800 We all know there's only one way to get to heaven, God's grace. The only way you're making it to heaven

00:10:11.260 is the grace of God. But Jesus told St. Faustina that all grace is received by one vessel only,

00:10:21.000 trust. Trust is the vessel by which all grace is received. So, this message of divine mercy, ABC,

00:10:28.680 ask for God's mercy, be merciful to each other, and completely trust, that's not new. That's been around

00:10:34.900 since the garden. And God, in his infinite patience with us, has been trying to give mankind that

00:10:41.340 message for centuries. The problem is, we're not listening too well. We're stubborn. We're stiff

00:10:48.700 necks. So, here's really, in a nutshell, what happened. So, finally, our Lord, centuries of prophets

00:10:54.520 and revelation and private revelation, in addition to public revelation of the scriptures,

00:10:59.560 tells us, basically, to St. Faustina, that's it. I'm done. And now, our Lord's never done with us.

00:11:08.260 So, and we don't want to sound that way. But he basically told St. Faustina, you, St. Faustina,

00:11:13.760 will prepare the world for my final coming. Now, this was 1931. So, 90, what is that? 92 years ago.

00:11:21.120 Okay. And he said, you will prepare the world for my final coming. And so, he did something incredible.

00:11:27.540 He gave five new channels of grace that we collectively call the devotion of divine mercy.

00:11:37.500 And those five new channels are easy to remember in an acronym, F-I-N-C-H, like a little bird.

00:11:45.960 F is the feast of divine mercy. I is the image of divine mercy. N is the novena of divine mercy.

00:11:53.940 C is the chaplet of divine mercy. And H is the hour of divine mercy, which is 3 p.m.

00:12:01.100 Now, critics will always point out that, well, Father, devotions are optional in the Catholic Church.

00:12:07.940 Okay. Technically true. But this devotion was given by God so that we could live a stronger message of

00:12:16.140 divine mercy, which are the ABCs we just mentioned. And that devotion will help you practice.

00:12:21.540 And that those five aspects are what we, Marian fathers, spread around the world and trusted by

00:12:27.960 the Church. And so, we're coming up in just a couple days with Divine Mercy Sunday. And in this

00:12:33.800 airing, we'll be right about that time. So, we're very excited that we want to spread this message far

00:12:39.380 and wide. Absolutely beautiful. Now, the practices, the Finch practices, as you call them,

00:12:45.940 they come with a great deal of promises from our Lord. What were those?

00:12:50.460 Yes. Okay. Almost every one of those aspects has a promise. And that's a great point. Let's start.

00:12:58.520 Okay. My favorite that brought me to was the promise of the chaplet. Okay. That even the most hardened

00:13:04.360 sinner, if he prays this chaplet even once, will have the graces necessary for salvation.

00:13:10.280 The novena, which we pray between Good Friday and the day before Divine Mercy Sunday, has many

00:13:16.620 promises. But let's talk about quickly the main promise of the Feast of Divine Mercy. In fact,

00:13:23.280 it's so amazing that the theologians call it the extraordinary promise of Divine Mercy Sunday.

00:13:30.140 What is it? Okay. Basically, in number 699 of the Diary of St. Faustina, our Lord summarized to her

00:13:36.680 why this day is so important. And he said to her, I want to feast on the Sunday after Easter. It has

00:13:45.060 to be on this day. That's an important day because that's the day the floodgates of mercy are open.

00:13:52.640 That particular day more than any other. And I was like, well, what about Easter? Father Seraphim used

00:13:57.920 to explain it to me. It's all connected. And here's how. Basically, our Lord told St. Faustina that

00:14:04.520 the Sunday after Easter is to be called Divine Mercy Sunday because, as I said, the floodgates of mercy

00:14:10.940 are open. Now, he said that the soul that goes to confession, and now that could be, doesn't have to

00:14:19.680 be on Divine Mercy Sunday, that could be any time today or whenever, that you're just in a state of

00:14:26.540 grace. You have to be in a state of grace. So, go to confession and the soul who receives Holy

00:14:34.420 Communion on that day, Divine Mercy Sunday or the vigil of the night before, the soul that does this

00:14:42.500 will receive not only the complete forgiveness of all sin, but you'll get something that normally we

00:14:52.000 don't get coming out of the confessional. And that is also all the remission of the temporal punishment

00:14:58.200 due to sin is wiped clean. And Father Seraphim has always taught me, never will your soul be cleaner

00:15:07.740 other than the moment of your original baptism than it is on Divine Mercy Sunday. Now, a well-trained

00:15:15.700 Catholic will say, well, Father, that's just a plenary indulgence because in a plenary indulgence, you get

00:15:22.000 the remission of sin through, or the forgiveness of sin through confession, and then the remission of

00:15:27.060 the temporal punishment. However, there are four conditions if we remember our plenary indulgence,

00:15:32.820 and one of them, the last one, is the hard one. No attachment to sin, even venial. And as I always say,

00:15:42.080 good luck because I struggle with impatience. I struggle with gluttony. I struggle sometimes with,

00:15:49.740 you know, wrong thoughts. These are, these are characteristic of still being broken in our human

00:15:55.940 nature. However, Jesus promises on this day, you have to do just two things. Go to confession and receive

00:16:06.880 Holy Communion, and you will get this promise. So, in other words, anybody can crawl out of the gutter,

00:16:14.940 no matter how sinful or broken we are. Get to confession, receive Holy Communion,

00:16:22.040 and there's no other conditions. Now, of course, we have to have rectification of the will. It's just

00:16:27.720 not a magic wand or a rabbit's foot that we could just go like this and say, well, I'll continue my

00:16:33.280 sinful life, but I like this idea. I can get cleaned up somewhat. No, we have to have the desire to change

00:16:40.140 our lives. And if we do have that desire, we get to confession, we receive Holy Communion. God's

00:16:45.800 promise is through St. Faustina, we will get cleansed completely of sin and punishment. And I

00:16:53.500 always say, John Henry, I always say that, you know, if I, if I, you know, I hear people all the

00:16:59.660 time say, if I could just start over, if I could just clean my slate, well, now you can.

00:17:05.040 So, it is, you know, Father, one of the things that is so fascinating, people used to,

00:17:11.580 I think early Christians, they would actually delay their baptisms just so that they could

00:17:18.300 have that particular grace right before death so that they would sort of delay it. It's a dangerous

00:17:24.140 game, but they would do that so as to avoid as much as purgatory as they could. And yet here we have

00:17:29.780 it with divine mercy. Amazing. That's an excellent point because this is just the reason God

00:17:34.960 gives us because if we were baptized as infants, which is scriptural, by the way, if we're baptized

00:17:40.900 as infants, boy, we've messed up probably quite a bit along the way. And now God gives us, this is

00:17:47.140 why we Marian fathers call it like a second baptism. Now, it's not a second baptism. You're only baptized

00:17:54.900 once, but it's like a second baptism in that what happens at your baptism, wipe away of sin

00:18:02.840 and the punishment due to sin. So, again, your soul's never cleaner other than your original

00:18:08.440 baptism than it is on this day. So, amazing and a grace you don't want to miss.

00:18:14.500 Beautiful. So, so many questions for you. One, can non-Catholics participate?

00:18:21.580 Ah, okay. Another great question. Yes. Now, here's how, because what happens in our Catholic

00:18:28.760 church teaching if we're unable to get to the sacraments, like you're homebound or you are,

00:18:34.840 you have no access to a priest. The church teaches to make an act of contrition, just telling God that

00:18:42.300 you're sorry. Now, for Catholics, we have to have the intent to return to the sacrament of confession

00:18:46.900 at our next available opportunity. But we like to teach that if a non-Catholic truly

00:18:54.380 is wanting the grace of God, they should make an act of contrition. Now, that goes across

00:19:00.240 all Christian denominations. Sorry for our sins, confessing to God a sorrow that we're asking for

00:19:09.220 forgiveness. So, make an act of contrition, just telling God that you're sorry. And then also in the

00:19:14.620 Catholic church, if we're unable to sacramentally receive Holy Communion, we make an act of spiritual

00:19:20.100 communion, where we just tell God that we can't receive you sacramentally right now, but please

00:19:26.760 come into our heart spiritually. And so, for a non-Catholic, we would say, make a spiritual communion

00:19:34.520 where you're asking God to come into your heart spiritually, and then make all of that with an act

00:19:41.360 of the will to change your life and ask God for this grace that he does. But all that being said,

00:19:49.940 there's no better way, though, than actually getting to the sacraments, getting to confession,

00:19:55.160 getting to Holy Communion. This is why the beauty of our Catholic church is so important. And the

00:20:00.780 significance of it is very important because a lot of people say, well, why did Jesus say it had to be

00:20:07.540 on the eighth day? Okay, here's something fascinating, if I may briefly try to describe this.

00:20:13.200 Now, in the Catholic church, we come from the Jews. Our tradition of worship comes from the Jews.

00:20:19.180 And for the Jewish tradition, when a feast was so big that it could not be celebrated in one day,

00:20:26.440 they would celebrate over eight days, and they call it an octave. We only have two octaves left in the

00:20:32.300 church now. I mean, we used to have the octave of Pentecost, the octave of Corpus Christi. We only

00:20:36.860 got two now, Christmas and Easter. Easter is the big octave. It starts on Easter Sunday. That's day one

00:20:43.740 of the octave. That begins the most holy eight days of our church year. So, Easter Sunday is the first

00:20:52.720 day of the octave, day one. Then we have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday,

00:20:58.360 Sunday, Divine Mercy Sunday, the eighth day. That's why Jesus always referred to it as the eighth day.

00:21:05.840 Now, why? Why is that important? Okay, the perfect number to the Jews, if we were to ask somebody,

00:21:14.340 and then in the Bible, is seven. So, people say, well, okay, how come an octave isn't seven days long

00:21:20.920 and make it the perfect number? The reason why is because people forget, or maybe never learned,

00:21:27.200 that the number eight to the Jews represents eternity. So, to the Jews, the number eight

00:21:34.760 represents eternity. Now, here's the whole message wrapped up in one. The reason Christ wants out all

00:21:41.660 symbolic in these eight days is this. On Easter Sunday, which we call day one of the octave, Jesus

00:21:48.580 opened the door to heaven. Without that, nothing else happened. So, this is paramount. Christ, you know,

00:21:55.600 announced this, went to the dead and announced to the souls, David and Moses and those waiting.

00:22:01.960 Heaven is now open. Christ opened the door to heaven. Now, the next seven days are symbolic

00:22:08.800 because seven refers to time. That's the number, perfect number in regards to time.

00:22:15.140 Seven is symbolic of our life, our pilgrimage here on earth that we go through in our journey,

00:22:23.760 and our pilgrimage here on earth called life. So, on day one, Jesus opened the door to heaven.

00:22:30.320 The next seven days are symbolic of our pilgrimage here on earth called life. But on the eighth day,

00:22:35.840 we will enter into eternity. We will die. We all will. And here's the beautiful symbolism.

00:22:43.040 The whole essence of the mass, according to the church fathers, is a nuptial marriage between God

00:22:52.120 and his people. Now, the new Israel is the church. So, Jesus is the groom. The church is his bride. Now,

00:23:00.220 who's the church? We are. We constitute the church. So, if Christ is the groom, on the eighth day,

00:23:07.480 he's going to come for you, his bride. Why? Because your time, you've now entered into eternity.

00:23:14.140 So, Christ wants to take you to heaven to meet his mother and his father, marry his mother,

00:23:19.500 God the Father. And on that eighth day, you will receive your eternal destiny. Now, he wants to

00:23:25.240 take you as his spouse to heaven. However, what did every Jewish man need his spouse to be

00:23:30.500 before taking her home to meet his parents? Spotless. What does the Bible tell us that we have to be

00:23:36.760 before entering heaven? Spotless. So, if Jesus comes for you on the eighth day, is he going to find you

00:23:43.200 spotless? Well, maybe not. Because our wedding garment, our soul, can have stain on it. Now,

00:23:52.480 there's two forms of stain, sin and the punishment that we may be owed even for sins forgiven. So,

00:24:00.000 like, if I've forgiven for the sin of drugs, but yet I'm still attached to them and I'm still addicted

00:24:07.200 to them, I got to be purified of that. So, I could still have purgatory time remaining for those sins

00:24:13.500 already forgiven. Those two stains stain our wedding garment, sin and the punishment. Now, on Divine Mercy

00:24:22.980 Sunday, eighth day, symbolic of eternity, Christ wipes them all away. He takes away all the sin

00:24:30.780 and all the punishment so that our wedding garment, our soul, is spotless for him to take to heaven.

00:24:39.740 And that is the nuptial meaning of the mass on earth and it's a foretaste of what the union will be

00:24:46.240 in heaven. Absolutely amazing. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Totally beautiful. You know,

00:24:52.820 Father, I did have a question with regard to the novena because I had a particular thing with the

00:24:57.400 novena early in my Catholic or reversion days. I prayed a novena for a friend whose girlfriend at

00:25:06.700 the time was a non-Catholic and didn't know what to do, loved her to pieces, but wanted to be faithful

00:25:13.820 as well. And just, it became impossible. We did the novena and there was a great miracle

00:25:18.780 causing her to basically come to the faith and then come into the faith. And now they're a holy

00:25:24.040 Catholic couple with seven kids. What are the promises of the novena? Okay. Each day. Now,

00:25:30.400 traditionally, one thing that's probably worth clarifying here is there's confusion between

00:25:34.400 the novena of Divine Mercy and the novena of chaplets. They are actually two different things.

00:25:42.300 Specifically, the Divine Mercy novena was a specific nine days of prayer request given by

00:25:51.540 Jesus to St. Faustina for her to pray between Good Friday and the Saturday before Divine Mercy Sunday.

00:26:00.140 And each day, he asked her to bring a certain group of souls. Now, some are good and some are in

00:26:06.960 need of prayer. So he says, bring to me the priests, souls of priests and religious. They, you know,

00:26:12.720 they helped me in my agony in the garden. So there are good ones. He's asking for prayers. But then

00:26:18.220 there's like the ninth day, bring to me the souls of lukewarm sinners. They're the ones that tormented

00:26:25.980 my heart the most during my passion. So specifically, Jesus makes many promises that if you bring to him

00:26:36.360 these groups on each day of the novena, they will be then advocates for you. So if we pray for all

00:26:45.720 schismatics and heretics, and then they're converted, all of a sudden, we'll have an army of,

00:26:52.660 we will have a bunch of prayer warriors for us as well. This intention, what makes it unique,

00:27:00.000 this novena, is it's the only novena that we have in the Catholic Church that I'm aware of,

00:27:05.640 that's not just our intentions, it's God's intentions. He actually gave us each day what

00:27:12.280 to pray for. Now, people will ask, well, Father, if I want to do a nine-day novena for healing of my

00:27:18.900 mom of cancer, can I do that? Yes, we call that a novena of chaplets. There, you can do any nine

00:27:27.420 consecutive days of prayer, any time of the year, for any intention, and you say the chaplet of divine

00:27:35.080 mercy as part of that daily novena prayer. And again, many, many graces tied to that. And so

00:27:42.720 it's important to realize that Jesus says many of these prayers are answered to the power of this

00:27:48.280 novena. And so what he's basically doing is saying, unite it with my intentions, and it'll

00:27:54.380 have the full grace that it is possible with any possible prayer outside of the Mass.

00:28:00.160 So Father, today, in today's world, particularly, I'd say over the past decade or so, before that for

00:28:07.420 two, but particularly now, the idea of mercy in the church has been sort of twisted. Right now,

00:28:16.780 when people talk about mercy, it's often, well, we have to have mercy and accept everybody and

00:28:23.680 accompany everybody and everything. And it's particularly applied right now to the LGBT plus

00:28:30.460 whatever, whatever. And mercifully allowing, you know, same-sex couples to receive Holy Communion,

00:28:37.660 in the opinion of certain priests and prelates, cardinals even. What's the real definition of

00:28:44.760 mercy here, according to our Lord? Horrible mistake in misleading souls. The two biggest sins that we can

00:28:53.700 fall into are despair and presumption. These are the two most deadly ways that we can go. Everything

00:29:02.060 else God can deal with. You know, if you're struggling out of weakness, with purity, or you're

00:29:06.880 struggling with impatience or gluttony, even the deadly sins, the ones that are the most deadly are

00:29:14.740 the two ends of the spectrum, despair and presumption. Despair is, there's no hope for me. I have no hope.

00:29:21.100 Even God can't forgive me. I'm too far gone. You know, no, please don't ever fall into despair.

00:29:26.880 And the opposite is presumption. Oh, it doesn't matter what I do. God is merciful. He'll forgive me.

00:29:34.200 Don't you judge me. You know, this whole idea of false mercy is really presumption. What do we mean by

00:29:41.760 that? Okay. From the very beginning, our faith has always taught, love the sinner, Augustine said,

00:29:47.400 but hate the sin. We are, and you know, John Henry, you probably get a laugh out of this too. I always

00:29:54.640 announce that I'm getting ready to write my next book and it's going to be called Catholics. Why we

00:30:00.660 are called to be intolerant and judgmental. And, and people go, oh boy, that's, that's not going to go

00:30:08.640 far. And I say, well, let me explain. We must be intolerant and judgmental of anything contrary to

00:30:15.820 the will of God. Notice I didn't say the person. We aren't to judge the people. That is God's job

00:30:22.660 and God's job alone. If I see somebody do something, I can judge the action. In fact, I'm required to

00:30:29.840 judge the action. Objectively, you're living, cohabitating with somebody. This is wrong. Objectively,

00:30:36.700 you're engaging in sodomy. This is wrong. I'm not judging the person because God only knows if

00:30:43.520 there's maybe a mental disturbance or there was abuse in that person's past that has affected

00:30:50.760 their free will. We don't judge the person. However, that does not mean we never hold accountability

00:30:58.660 and never point out objectively that actions, certain actions are gravely sinful and can never

00:31:06.260 be accepted. For instance, abortion. I'll give you an example of abortion. Yes, I don't judge a mother

00:31:12.020 having an abortion because she might be threatened by her boyfriend that he's going to kill her if she

00:31:17.300 doesn't have it. I can't judge her. But what I can judge is the action. Under no circumstances can the

00:31:25.360 church ever say abortion is okay. Never. And so we judge not the person, but we must judge the action.

00:31:33.920 And the biggest lie of divine mercy is saying, don't worry about it. God is all mercy. Yes,

00:31:43.540 he is mercy, but he's also justice. We can't lose sight of the fact that this does not mean you can

00:31:50.540 continue in a lifestyle. The reason that I preach against transgenderism and same-sex, I won't even

00:31:57.600 call it marriage. It's not because I'm judging them as persons. It's not because I think I'm more holy

00:32:12.380 than you. Lord knows my struggles. I do it because I want to see you not be lost. St. Faustina in her

00:32:22.120 diary gave a very descriptive paragraph on the narrow road and the wide road. And she talked

00:32:30.700 about the narrow road and the wide road. And this wide road was full of singing and dancing and

00:32:37.080 carnal pleasures and what seemed to be joyful things. And at the end, it fell off a cliff.

00:32:45.940 And then she simultaneously explained a narrow path that was full of thorns, rocks, thickets,

00:32:54.700 struggling, suffering. But at the end, that narrow path ended up in the most beautiful garden

00:33:01.220 of paradise. And so if we truly love someone, we don't want to see them go down that path

00:33:09.620 to a cliff. We want to see them in that path to eternal life and in the garden of paradise.

00:33:18.200 This is what is most grossly misunderstood about mercy. It's not a license. It's not a free ticket

00:33:26.040 to sin. Beautiful. One of the things that a lot of people struggle with, particularly Catholics,

00:33:35.860 good Catholics, and unfortunately, it's becoming more common today, is the issue of suicide.

00:33:42.680 And you've actually written a book about that called After Suicide. How are Catholics to come to

00:33:50.760 any kind of peace with their loved ones who have done this or friends or so on?

00:33:55.700 An absolutely critical topic in today's day and age. If I may regress just a bit, one of the reasons

00:34:04.820 that this has come to the forefront so much was the whole falsity of the lies that were perpetrated

00:34:13.340 through the whole COVID situation. One of them, which was this, that you don't hear about.

00:34:21.520 Many people who are receiving mental health treatment that were suffering gravely with depression

00:34:27.640 and anxiety, they were not everywhere. I know I'm going to get letters. They're going to say,

00:34:32.720 Father, I'm a healthcare worker. How dare you say that we didn't provide services? No. Absolutely,

00:34:38.320 there was places that were providing and continued to provide even during COVID. But a huge number of

00:34:45.560 facilities closed down and would not let people in to receive mental health treatment. Out of fear of

00:34:52.980 COVID, they were banned and they were not allowed to come in to receive treatment. I know this

00:34:58.620 personally because I give spiritual direction to several of them. Now, calls to the suicide hotlines

00:35:05.600 went up 600% during COVID because of the isolation. What is one of the worst things that you can do for

00:35:15.040 somebody struggling in this kind of area is to isolate them and to bring them more fear. All of a sudden,

00:35:21.140 you have somebody who's already struggling now as being on top of that, forced in isolation,

00:35:25.840 and then you're putting more fear on top of that. It was a recipe for absolute disaster. What's scary,

00:35:33.440 it's a bittersweet result, is the book that I wrote several years ago is now the number one selling

00:35:41.100 book in Ireland in the nonfiction category. This book was written five years ago and it's the number

00:35:48.800 one book in the nonfiction category in Ireland. This is alarming. I mean, I'm glad that people are

00:35:54.440 turning to God's mercy, but it's very troubling that we're having this type of mental struggles in

00:36:02.460 our world today. Now, however, don't despair. God's mercy is greater even than suicide. However,

00:36:11.760 we have to teach and preach, it's never the answer. Suicide is a permanent response to a temporary

00:36:19.740 earthly problems, but God's mercy is still there for those who didn't willfully want it. This is the

00:36:27.640 key. If you willfully choose to isolate yourself from God, if you choose freely of the will, yes,

00:36:36.360 your soul is lost. If you die in an unrepentant state of mortal sin and you willfully choose

00:36:42.800 separation from God, your soul is lost. However, I use my grandma as an example. She was struggling with

00:36:49.960 mental. There was severe debilitating factors in her mental being, and I know for a fact she did not want

00:36:58.880 to take her life. She didn't want to end her life. She saw no other way out. It became an only solution

00:37:07.620 that she could wrongfully see, and so the book is to teach and preach not to lose hope, but it never

00:37:16.720 condones suicide or says it's okay. Never. But what it does say is if we've lost someone, we still have

00:37:24.560 hope in the mercy of God. As Catechism 2282 and 2283 say, there are mitigating circumstances such

00:37:32.840 as mental illness or grave fear or mental illness or anxiety or depression that factor in. In fact,

00:37:40.620 Catechism 2283 says we should never despair of the salvation of those who've taken their own lives

00:37:48.240 because in ways known to God alone, he can bring an opportunity for them to repent. They still have

00:37:54.940 to repent, but God gives them, we believe, the opportunity somewhere to do that. It's just a

00:38:02.780 matter of trusting in the mercy of God. One of the things that we have spreading around the world now

00:38:08.800 is this whole movement called, they used to call it mercy killing, and now they call it medical

00:38:16.760 assistance in dying or some other, you know, euphemism for euthanasia for killing oneself or

00:38:24.120 having someone kill you. In that process, there's actually, and it's horrible to talk about because

00:38:32.700 once they start down the road, you know, they give themselves an injection or they get some whatever it

00:38:37.000 is, there's actually a few moments in between where a person might reconsider and obtain that mercy as

00:38:43.460 well. But your thoughts on this phenomenon? I'm very glad you brought that up because never in any

00:38:52.460 church teaching is it ever accepted euthanasia, assisted suicide. People will call it mercy killing.

00:39:02.960 Well, I don't want to see them suffer any longer. What you're not understanding is God may allow

00:39:09.660 through that suffering, a purification of that soul to be able to make the difference between

00:39:16.800 salvation and damnation. What we don't understand is how God is working behind the scenes. Only he is

00:39:24.580 the author of life and death. Under no circumstances can we assume that. Now, the church teaching is under

00:39:31.840 severe life support type of things. Yes, there is not a moral requirement that you keep a digital brain

00:39:41.120 that's, you know, a person that's been severely brain damaged alive through real deep technology

00:39:48.620 and medical equipment. There's not that. But the basic things like feeding tubes, what we call the

00:39:54.660 ordinary means, you can't remove that. You cannot take that away from the person. Extraordinary means

00:40:02.460 can be. But ordinary means, just because I have to eat through a tube rather than my mouth, is not

00:40:08.220 grounds to take a life. Because somebody has pain is not grounds to take a life. And there are many

00:40:16.100 Catholics, and I've done talks on this, that are under that misconception that because they're suffering,

00:40:22.960 it's okay to end their lives because you're entering their suffering. That's false. And that is something

00:40:27.960 we need to be very careful of. If you don't mind, Father, I'm going to drill down on that some more

00:40:32.760 because it's so important. There's a lot of people who say, you know, my horse is suffering, my dog is

00:40:42.320 suffering. I'm going to put it out of its misery. But you're requiring me to let my mom, my dad, my

00:40:50.000 whatever, go through this terrible suffering? How inhumane. How is that mercy?

00:40:56.740 Well, and what they first have to understand is, while it's true, every living thing has a soul,

00:41:02.800 every plant, every animal, every human has a soul. Only the human has a rational, immortal soul.

00:41:10.360 Okay? So this is the teaching of Thomas Aquinas. You know, a lot of people will always ask that

00:41:15.820 question about my pet in heaven and whatnot, so I won't get into the depth of that here. But I will

00:41:20.260 say this, the human soul is and may most likely be being led by God through a purification through

00:41:28.240 that suffering. There is no resurrection. There is no Easter Sunday without Good Friday. All of us

00:41:36.480 will partake in that cross in some way or another. It could be physical, emotional, or even spiritual,

00:41:43.700 like a dark night of the soul. What we have to understand is we are to be there to provide support

00:41:50.300 and help for that person being purified. I'll give a quick example of my own parents right now. I'm

00:41:56.580 going through a very difficult time. My mother is in very ill health, extreme dementia, and it is a very

00:42:05.800 tough situation. And my father, through decades of his life, never really was a self-sacrificing

00:42:14.940 type of person. It was more focused on his career, where we lived was based on where he wanted to be,

00:42:21.000 his job. Okay, I understand that. I'm not criticizing him for that. But only when my mom got extremely sick

00:42:29.060 did two things happen in my family. One, my mom had never forgiven her mother through her whole life

00:42:37.980 of child abuse. My mom was abused as a child by her mother. My mom had never forgiven her, refused to

00:42:47.140 forgive her. After my mom got sick, my mom got sick, she and I had a conversation just before her dementia

00:42:56.480 started setting in. And it was in her sickness that she found the grace of forgiveness. In order to

00:43:05.520 find that grace to forgive my grandmother, her mom, only came, my mom said, when she experienced some of

00:43:13.260 her own sickness to see what her mother went through, and she forgave. Now, all of a sudden, my mom's

00:43:20.040 sickness may have allowed my mom's salvation. Now, on top of that, my father, who had always been

00:43:27.640 self-focused and self-centered, I have never in my life seen a more dedicated, more devoted last three

00:43:38.920 years. He has given his entire life to caring for her, to treating her, changing her, feeding her,

00:43:48.500 cooking for her, cleaning for her. He never did that before. This is an act of supernatural love

00:43:55.120 that only came because my mom is suffering. Had we put her to death, had we euthanized her,

00:44:02.060 we may have two lost souls. My mom through unforgiveness, my father through lack of charity.

00:44:08.040 Now, through the suffering of my mom, we have, I believe, two saved souls. My mom has forgiven,

00:44:13.720 and my father is living supernatural charity. Unbelievable. Only God's grace could do something

00:44:21.540 like that. Wow. Wow. If that doesn't give a head-spinning way of looking at suffering, nothing

00:44:28.940 will. You know, Father, there's another aspect to St. Faustina, and that's about the prophecies

00:44:40.080 that she made. And I'd love to hear your take on, first of all, if you can give us a nutshell of

00:44:46.440 what that was, but be where you think we are on that path. Because as you mentioned already,

00:44:54.060 about after my day of mercy, she said, comes my day of justice, and what that means for our time.

00:45:00.900 Well, you know, it's interesting because this tied in so uniquely with Fatima,

00:45:04.920 because at Fatima, the children warned of a great war. Faustina fully prophesied what was going to

00:45:12.820 happen with World War II. And in fact, her credibility was much more seen by the popes

00:45:19.020 that came after her death in seeing her writings because of what she did prophesy about things such

00:45:27.120 as the great war that was coming and the chastisement. She prophesied her own canonization.

00:45:32.160 She prophesied. In fact, she talks about what we talk about here a lot is the three days of

00:45:38.800 darkness. Now, three days of darkness are not dogmatic revelation that we are required as

00:45:44.900 Catholics to believe, but many saints and blessings, Tyge and Jehenna and others have brought up.

00:45:52.060 Faustina talked that Jesus said shortly before the end, the cross will appear in the sky,

00:45:57.560 the skies will be darkened, the earth will be darkened, and the only light will be across in

00:46:04.420 the sky where light will emanate from the wounds of the hands and the feet that were of Christ's

00:46:13.560 marks of the crucifixion. And that will be the only light that will be seen. So there is this days of

00:46:19.960 darkness forecasted, but she prophesied that the world was going to be in deep, deep sin and that

00:46:30.240 we had to turn to God's mercy now while there is still time because she said that Jesus told her

00:46:36.260 that shortly after will become the time of justice and then it's too late. We have this window. We have

00:46:43.220 this time of mercy right now and it's slowly closing. Many mystics, prophets, and saints will

00:46:50.640 tell us. And that's why I think he gave John Henry, I think he gave the Feast of Mercy. And if I may

00:46:55.820 quickly add this prophecy, because I think this is very interesting. In St. Faustina's diary,

00:47:00.940 she had a vision of a great gathering in Rome. It was the celebration that she simultaneously saw from

00:47:07.360 her chapel. She was the first saint of the new millennium, which is also very significant.

00:47:11.120 There was no talk at all of instituting the Feast of Divine Mercy. Now, St. Faustina wrote in her diary

00:47:19.000 that she saw St. Peter appear during this event and whisper into the ear of the Holy Father,

00:47:29.620 who was John Paul at that time. And what is so interesting, if you watch the videos of that event,

00:47:40.560 John Paul almost appeared to be in a trance. He almost appeared to be in meditation-type prayer.

00:47:47.900 Faustina, you know, decades earlier, writes that she sees St. Peter approach the Holy Father and

00:47:55.660 whisper in his ear, John Paul appears in this like meditative state and then announces the Feast

00:48:02.980 of Divine Mercy. And I always say, I believe that John Paul, who was the Pope at the time,

00:48:11.240 listened to St. Peter, who said, now is the time of mercy. We are going to institute this feast. You

00:48:18.880 are to declare it. We are to give it to the world because the time of justice is coming. So what does

00:48:25.640 God do? The scripture tells us where sin abounds, God's mercy abounds all the more. That doesn't mean

00:48:32.480 it's a free ticket that we can do whatever we want, that hell isn't real. Hell is real. Purgatory is real.

00:48:40.540 Consequences of our sin is real. The commandments are real. But God is giving us the grace through divine

00:48:47.800 mercy to stand up to this culture. I mean, I pity a young teenage boy nowadays because of the culture.

00:48:57.620 They're being told that marriage can be between two men and two women. They're being taught that

00:49:04.020 abortion is good. They're being taught that the preservation of religious liberty is not important

00:49:09.380 anymore. Patriotism in our country is being lost. I feel so sorry, but God is heaping mercy at the same

00:49:17.340 time so that anybody who desires can still embrace and fight this culture. And God bless LifeSite.

00:49:25.660 You guys are an example of somebody who's standing up for the truth and standing up to the lies of the

00:49:31.720 culture. We Marian Fathers are trying to do the same, and that is so important today. And that's why we

00:49:38.340 need the grace to be able to do that. Amen to that. Thank you for that, Father. One of the things that

00:49:44.700 LifeSite has experienced for being willing to speak the truth in a culture that hates the truth

00:49:50.920 is cancellation. Now, we, thanks be to God, just in the nick of time, had built our own servers

00:50:00.360 and were cancelled right thereafter. But the Marian Fathers as well have started to set up. Tell us about

00:50:08.700 that so that we don't lose you when the time comes that you might also be cancelled.

00:50:14.840 I'll be honest, we used you as an example. Our priests and brothers here are fans of LifeSite.

00:50:22.340 We saw what happened. We had one of our own apostolates, the Mother of Mercy Messengers,

00:50:27.500 which is one of our own apostolates, cancelled. They were only temporarily, thank goodness.

00:50:32.520 But the writing is on the wall. And so we took upon ourselves to do the same thing. We've created a

00:50:42.000 new digital platform called DivineMercyPlus.org. It's spelled out, so DivineMercyPlus.org. And on that,

00:50:53.660 we are backing up all of our videos, all of our content, because our content, you will never find

00:50:59.920 in a Marian content anything contrary to the teaching of the church. You will find nothing but

00:51:07.040 full truth and supportive teaching of our church for 2,000 years of our history. And we've backed

00:51:15.200 it up. We put these videos, we'll be putting them on Vimeo so that we can place them on our own

00:51:21.480 platform. We're in the process of doing that. We are still on YouTube, and we pray that that will

00:51:26.980 continue. But we are preparing, as you had to, because I always say, God bless me with an ability

00:51:36.780 to be able to hopefully teach the truth. But I know I got a big mouth. And the problem is, I want

00:51:42.240 to use the big mouth for the Lord. Nowadays, you're going to get cancelled for it. And we have to prepare.

00:51:48.900 And so I'm praying it doesn't happen in a full degree. But our apostolate's already been cancelled.

00:51:53.900 And I speak out regularly against the evils of abortion, gay marriage, and the destruction of

00:52:01.360 religious liberty, destruction of the patriarchy, the horrors of communism and Marxism. I speak out

00:52:08.360 regularly against this. And we're just preparing that we hope that we're okay, but we got to prepare

00:52:16.960 if we do get cancelled. Father, thank you so very much for your fidelity, for your great words. And I

00:52:24.560 pray that many, many people might take up. We are airing this right before the Feast of Divine Mercy.

00:52:33.160 And I pray and pray and pray that people take up your invitation, our Lord's invitation,

00:52:38.860 to celebrate this Feast of Divine Mercy. Give us one more time, Finch.

00:52:44.660 The great devotion that God gave to St. Faustina, these five new channels of grace, if you missed it,

00:52:52.160 is simply the acronym, Finch, like the little bird, F-I-N-C-H. And the F is the Feast of Divine

00:52:59.840 Mercy coming up the Sunday after Easter, which we're getting excited and prepared for. I is the

00:53:06.020 image of Divine Mercy. You can see the little image right here. You can find it regularly throughout

00:53:11.560 the internet, but it's the image of Jesus as he appeared to St. Faustina. Many promises. Jesus said

00:53:17.060 that the person who adores the image will not be lost. The person who venerates this image

00:53:23.880 will not be lost. So many promises there. That's I. N is the novena of Divine Mercy, which Jesus gave

00:53:31.920 to St. Faustina to pray for particular souls between Good Friday and the day before Divine Mercy

00:53:38.320 Sunday. C, powerful. The chaplet of Divine Mercy, which Jesus said that no matter how hardened the

00:53:46.120 sinner, and this is what brought me back, no matter how sinful, the soul that prays this chaplet even

00:53:53.600 once will have graces that will help them for salvation. Amazing. So that's C. And then finally,

00:54:00.880 the H is the Hour of Mercy, which we celebrate at 3 p.m., the hour that traditionally our Lord died on

00:54:07.720 the cross. And he also makes many promises at the three o'clock hour to ask him for these graces to

00:54:14.700 help live a virtuous and holy life. So a beautiful devotion that Jesus gave through St. Faustina that we

00:54:22.480 hope all of you will help put into your own life. Awesome. Father Chris Allar, so good to be with you.

00:54:29.440 Could you grant us, please, your blessing? Absolutely. Heavenly Father, we ask that you

00:54:35.160 send the Holy Spirit to continue on this ministry of LifeSite and their activity and their apostolate

00:54:40.500 and give all of these viewers and those seeking the truth, the wisdom and the grace of your Divine

00:54:46.960 Mercy. And we bless you all in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

00:54:53.540 Amen. God bless you, Father, and thank you.

00:54:56.720 And thank you for also doing the same and the great work at LifeSite.

00:55:01.860 Praise God. And God bless all of you. And we'll see you next time.

00:55:26.720 Thank you.

GET READY： Divine Mercy Comes Right Before Divine Justice ｜ Fr. Chris Alar

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