Daily Reflections on Divine Mercy

Reflection 143: Trust, Trust and More Trust Every reflection of this book ends with a prayer and each prayer ends with the prayer, “Jesus, I trust in You.”  But do you?  Trust is not only a one time act.  It’s not something we do or do not do.  It’s something we must do on a continually deepening level.  There is no limit to the depths of the trust to which we are called.  The deeper your trust, t...

Reflection 142: The Lord’s Peace Dispels Evil It is important to recognize the existence of the evil one, satan.  And it’s important to realize his anger and hatred.  His hatred is of greater intensity than we may be able to understand.  It is beyond his control to cease hating us and seeking to destroy us with all his powers.  Why is it important to know this?  Because when we receive some attack...

Reflection 141: The Mercy of the Angels Only in Heaven will we understand the gift of the angelic hosts.  These magnificent spiritual beings were created by God out of love.  Some were created for the sole purpose of eternal worship and adoration of the Most Holy Trinity.  They never tire of this calling and worship God with an ever deepening love and communion.  Other angelic beings were created...

Reflection 140: Being Misunderstood In your relations with others, do you sometimes feel misunderstood?  It could be by a close family member, a friend, a coworker, etc.  The problem is that the content of your mind, heart, will, intention, and all of your past experiences are what go into directing your actions.  And no one understands all of this except God.  We do not even fully understand what...

Reflection 139: Providence Makes it Happen Sometimes we tend to push the Will of God faster than God has chosen to move.  As a result, we end up doing our own will and not that of God’s.  The key is patience.  We must patiently wait upon the Lord for Him to act in us so that He is the one doing all things through us.  In fact, the act of patience is something that God desires greatly in our lives....

Reflection 138: God’s Mercy is Infinite Perhaps it’s no surprise to hear it said that the Mercy of God is infinite.  But “infinity” is quite a concept to grasp.  In fact, some would argue that it is impossible to grasp.  Delving into something that is infinite and has no bounds is beyond what we could ever fathom.  So it is with the Mercy of God.  Being infinite, we should realize that we will spe...

Reflection 137: Power in the Cross When you pray, do you ever sit and gaze upon the crucifix?  From an outside perspective, the crucifix is a puzzling reality.  Why would we lift high and honor such a horrific event?  The brutal murder of the Son of God may not be, at first, something we are attracted to.  Yet, the crucifix has a power and a draw for those who gaze upon it in faith because it is n...

Reflection 136: The Power of a Grateful Heart If you were to examine the content of your prayer life over the past month, what would you see?  Hopefully there would be many moments of surrender, intercession, praise and adoration.  And hopefully there were also many moments in which your prayer consisted of deep thanksgiving to God.  Being grateful, truly grateful, and expressing that gratitude in...

Reflection 135: Conversing with Jesus Do you converse with Jesus?  This is a form of prayer that is most fruitful.  “Conversation” with God is not the highest form of prayer, but it is a form of prayer that we often need to begin with.  Conversation with God is especially fruitful when we carry some form of burden or confusion in life.  When this is the case, it can be helpful to speak about this...

Reflection 134: The Sweetness of Our Joint Labor A honey bee works diligently, day after day, and a colony of bees all work toward the same natural end.  They work to produce honey.  This is no small task and requires constant work on the part of thousands of bees to produce a small amount of honey.  But, in the end, their efforts pay off and honey is made and stored in the hive.  So it is with ou...

Reflection 133: Actions on Our Own We cannot do anything good on our own.  This is a fact.  All we can do on our own is sin.  In fact, the only way to please God and to do good things for Him is to rely upon Him for everything.  We must have a relationship of complete dependence upon God in all things.  It’s easy to think that we will please God if we simply try harder with an action we have under...

Reflection 132: The Incomprehensible God One common tendency we all have is curiosity.  We easily become curious about almost everything, desiring to know.  Magazines, news articles, shows, daily gossip sessions, etc., all have as their aim the satisfaction of our curiosity.  This curiosity must turn into a desire to know God and all He speaks to us.  But, with that said, we must also know that we...

Reflection 131: The Great Work of Small Sacrifices Is it better to do great works, or small sacrifices?  It’s easy to conclude that some great work for God is far better than any small sacrifice.  But is it?  That all depends upon the Will of God.  Sometimes we take on some “great work” for God but, in the end, it’s not part of His plan.  A work is great only when it is done because God inspired i...

Reflection 130: Correcting Others in Love There is little doubt that each one of us will encounter, from time to time, the sin of another.  It could be in their words, actions or the omission of what they ought to do.  Sin hurts and requires correction.  Very often, when we are sinned against, we tend to get angry.  But the anger we have is not always “holy anger” and is not, therefore, always fro...

Reflection 129: Do Not Be Afraid “Do not be afraid; just have faith” (Mark 5:36).  These four words, “Do not be afraid,” are spoken countless times throughout the Scripture.  We should pay attention to them.  Fear can paralyze us and lead us into many forms of foolish thinking and acting.  The person who acts out of fear truly acts like a fool.  That may seem harsh at first, but it’s not if you un...

Reflection 128: The Sweetness of Encountering Jesus Have you encountered the sweetness of Jesus?  He, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, come to you in the secret depths of your soul.  There, in this hidden place, they desire to communicate with you.  Their communication is beyond words and concepts.  It’s a communication of profound love that leaves the soul at peace and with a delight of the g...

Reflection 127: The Love of God Through Obedience You are called to love God with your whole heart, mind, soul and strength.  But how do you do this?  What does an active loving of God look like in our lives?  Ultimately, we love God through holy obedience.  We must obey His Divine Will above all else.  Perhaps that seems like a strange concept, that love of God is best expressed in holy obedience...

Reflection 126: Filial Fear – The Good Fear Do you have fear in your life?  It’s important to know that some fear is quite unhealthy, stemming from a form of pride, while another form of fear is quite healthy, resulting from your profound love of God.  The “holy fear” is filial fear , which is the fear of a child of God.  This particular form of fear is present when your love of God is so deep tha...

Reflection 125: The Victim Soul Do you know that our Lord chooses certain people for a specific mission of suffering?  He picks certain people, who are few in number, to more fully resemble His innocent suffering here on Earth.  These holy souls suffer in many and varied ways.  They are the continuation of the innocent suffering of Jesus Himself.  They have a very specific mission on Earth and it...

Reflection 124: The Mercy of Intercessory Prayer Do you want to see The Divine Mercy of God pour forth upon the world in an abundant way?  Hopefully and presumably the answer to that question is an easy, “Yes.”  It’s important to know that, in some ways, you are responsible for whether or not that happens.  Specifically, Jesus has chosen to make His abundance of Mercy flow forth as a direct result...

Reflection 123: The Blessing of Humiliations Who, in their right mind, would want to be humiliated?  What would you do if you were humiliated?  Most people would be tempted to seek ways to avoid humiliation. Some would become deeply hurt as a result.  Others would become angry and defensive.  And though the source of one’s humiliation may not be fair, it’s important to understand that humiliations...

Reflection 122: If You Could Choose If you could choose between all the wealth in the world or an intimate and loving relationship with Jesus, which would you choose?  Do not answer that too quickly.  We may know that choosing Jesus is the right answer, but would you choose Him?  Imagine the power and worldly “freedom” you would enjoy if you had unlimited earthly wealth.  And yet, the truth is tha...

Reflection 121: The Secret Inner Garden of Your Heart Imagine that your home had an inner, hidden courtyard in which you had a garden.  No one knew about this secret garden.  It was a place where you planted, tilled, labored, weeded and harvested.  The produce from this garden was then secretly distributed to many to nourish and delight them.  This is an image of the depths of your soul.  The home...

Read Online Reflection 120: Pure Love of God The ultimate purpose of your life is love.  And, more specifically, it is first to love God with a pure love.  For love to be pure, it must be freed from all selfishness.  Pure love looks only at the one being loved.  When we love God with a pure love, we will find that we are drawn to God for His sake, because He is glorious and worthy of our love, and...

Read Online Reflection 119: Interior and Exterior Mortifications Mortification is a practice of denying your will so as to grow in greater detachment from the passing things of this world.  We must seek to detach from everything but God and His holy Will.  It’s not that everything we like or desire is bad, but if we want true holiness, our desire for God must transform every other desire and direc...