The three main themes of the devotion - and the focus of the recitation of the Divine Mercy Chaplet - are 1. to ask for and obtain the mercy of God, 2. to trust in Christ's abundant mercy, and 3. to show mercy to others and act as a conduit for God's mercy towards them.

Love has defeated death and is now on the march to renew the face of the earth.

One of the ways we know that we are worshipping God - that we are making him and his way our life’s priority - is that we are becoming more loving, more generous people. We’ve certainly witnessed that this year in our shared almsgiving project (a collection for the Ukrainian people that eclipsed $22,000), and I’m sure you have your own stories of how you rose to meet the demands of Love in ordinary and extraordinary ways.

Sacred images inspire us. Their beauty reminds us that God is at work in the world, and that his love will

win the day. All of this we forgo in order to enter into a veiled time; an unmediated, unseeing abandonment to

God, who himself descends into our darkness.

We can just use every moment we have left as an opportunity to love God with our whole heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love our neighbor as ourselves.

I’ve noticed, further, that Lent (spurred on particularly by fasting) dredges up - and makes more apparent - our sinfulness.

We’re meant to hear that at the very heart of God’s humanity-rescuing project is not Jesus’ doing something, but his being something.

Whatever you do, do for God. Don’t do it because you’re tough and can handle more; don’t do it to be bolder than someone else; don’t do it so you can tell others about it; and don’t do it because it benefits you in some other way. Do it, whatever it is, because you love and trust God. The reward will be beyond your imagining.