It’s Three O’clock Somewhere 

Mercy wasn’t on my mind. A long to-do list and a nap before my midnight adoration hour was crowding my thoughts as I sought to end a church meeting in record time.

I was regretting my “Yes,” to run the meeting. It seemed like a mundane task that could have been answered in a survey. I wanted to hear what these women were saying, but I was tired and looking at a staggering work week ahead of me.

I forgot there is a reason we spend the majority of the Church year in the Ordinary Time, known as the growing time. We need this time to grow, trust, and practice the events in the Church year that prepares our hearts for the glory days of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. By using an ordinary meeting, God was about to show me how the promises He made to St. Faustina were evergreen.

As we went around the room asking participants about the retreat, a short-haired brunette woman began pouring out her heart. She wasn’t Catholic. She loved the Bible but didn’t want to go to Mass with her husband and children. I was trying to understand why she attended a Catholic women’s retreat when she said, “but I found my sisters here and now I’m not angry about coming to Mass with my husband and children anymore.”

Suddenly, I didn’t regret leading the meeting. I was very interested in hearing everything that was said…except when I wanted to pretend, I didn’t hear the still small voice that told me to give this woman my Divine Mercy Chaplet. A red-beaded chaplet that had been laid on St. Faustina’s grave in Poland and brought back to me when my dear nun friend returned from pilgrimaging there.

There was no way I was giving up my chaplet. Arguing with the “voice,” I was sure I’d win this one because I didn’t have the chaplet with me. It was so special to me that I left it on my prayer table at home for “safe-keeping.”

“Go get it,” I heard in my heart. Again, I had the perfect come-back. “I’m running a very important meeting here; I can’t just leave.” Oh no, I couldn’t leave the meeting I never wanted to attend! The constant command to give this woman my Divine Mercy Chaplet would not go away. I excused myself and asked my friend to take over before heading home, since it was clear this voice was not going away. I lived only five minutes from church, and I made it back just as the meeting was ending.

I was about to do my first deed of mercy as outlined in the Divine Mercy message. Returning, I walked up to the woman.

“You are to have this,” I said dropping the chaplet into her hand. “Please take care of it. This is a very special chaplet I’m giving you.”

I knew I’d never get another like it, but I felt great peace. I was sure I would never see the chaplet or the woman again. I was wrong.

Months later, I was volunteering at a Catholic conference when this same woman approached me, beaming and smiling.

“I’m Catholic now,” she said. “And it’s all because you gave me that chaplet.”

She told me she had been looking for a sign to be Catholic and that placing the chaplet in her hands was a turning point for her. It was the moment her heart shifted to accept all the graces of the Catholic Church. I think I jumped ten feet in the air from sheer joy and gave her a big hug. I couldn’t believe how God had used me as a vessel of his Divine Mercy when I thought I would just be attending a boring meeting!

God used my special chaplet to show me He uses us in many ways to spread His message of Divine Mercy across the world. The woman told me that she prayed the chaplet asking God if she should enter the Catholic Church. She told me she knew how special my chaplet had been to me that night –I’d only had it a month– and she took the time to look up how to pray it. Jesus told St. Faustina that everything could be obtained through praying the chaplet. (Diary 1128)

As we celebrate the 20^th anniversary of Divine Mercy being declared a feast day in the Universal Church – and the canonization of St. Faustina, the patron saint of mercy—my prayer is that you will use this book as a way to Go to Mercy and Be Mercy for others.