As Divine Mercy Sunday celebrates the 90th anniversary of the first celebration in 1935, a celebration that was made official for the universal Church in 2000, Marian Father Chris Alar, provincial superior of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Mercy Province of the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception and host of EWTN’s Living Divine Mercy, shared some important aspects of the message and devotion, beginning with the misconception or incorrect idea some still have: that devotion to The Divine Mercy is somehow taking away from devotion to the Sacred Heart. Once understood, it should not be an issue, as Pope Francis explained in his October 2024 encyclical letter.

Is Divine Mercy trying to replacing the Sacred Heart?

Some will say, “This is a bad thing because you're trying to replace the Sacred Heart devotion,” The answer is — absolutely not. Divine Mercy does not replace the Sacred Heart. It completes and fulfills the Sacred Heart. There is a big difference.

Please explain the difference.

In the Sacred Heart, we learned that God is love. It was his answer to the heresy of Jansenism. God said to mankind, “Come to me.” He told mankind through St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, “Come to me. I am Love.” Well, we didn’t do that. We continued to be skittish creatures.

So, finally, Jesus in the Divine Mercy devotion, said to St. Faustina, “I’m coming to you.” That’s why every image of Divine Mercy has the left foot of Jesus stepping forward. He’s coming to us. It’s not about us coming to him like the Sacred Heart. He’s coming to us.

So Divine Mercy completes and fulfills the Sacred Heart. Why? Because the Sacred Heart is love. Jesus teaches you love. But in Divine Mercy, the definition of mercy is “it is love put into action.”

The Divine Mercy is taking that same Sacred Heart, but it’s taking it one step further. In the Sacred Heart, we learn God is love. What does God do with it? What do we do with it? That’s the Divine Mercy. We see God’s love put into action. He comes for us. And that’s why it’s not about just our devotion to God, it’s about God’s devotion to us. That is what is unique about Divine Mercy. It’s not just our devotion to a saint; it’s our devotion to God and God’s devotion to us.

How do the images of each relate, then?

So the challenge is, does this replace the Sacred Heart? No. If you look at the image of The Divine Mercy, the rays of blood and water come from his Sacred Heart. They don’t replace it. If we replace the Sacred Heart, we wouldn’t even show the rays coming from his heart. But we do.

Jesus himself asked for both feasts. They don’t contradict each other. They are complementary.

Something you said on your Living Divine Mercy show is surprising: that a well-known saint had a hint of this connection centuries earlier.

Catherine of Siena said that “The Sacred Heart of Jesus is our love, but the form that love takes when it reaches out to human misery is mercy.”

Then Divine Mercy has a foundation even before it comes to us fully through St. Faustina?

Divine Mercy, the message, goes back to the Garden of Eden, where God had mercy on Adam and Eve. He could have crushed them out of existence but chose to be merciful and gave them the promise of a savior and the gift of a mother (Genesis 3:15). Then, after centuries and centuries trying to get mankind to come back to him, we didn’t listen. We’ve had throughout history, things like Jansenism, we’re afraid of God.

So to help us, after 1,900 years even after his Son, there is the gift of St. Faustina. She was chosen to help bring the devotion of Divine Mercy. So the message of Divine Mercy is scriptural. It’s not optional. And while the devotion of Divine Mercy is technically optional, it’s something that we really, really need. The devotion helps us live the message of Divine Mercy.

On another note, please remind us of the acrostic the Marians have to help us easily remember and put into practice the message of Divine Mercy.

The classic Marian teaching of the message of Divine Mercy is the ABCs, which is A-Ask for God’s mercy; B-Be merciful to each other; and C-Completely trust in God’s mercy. And that is Scripture. You can’t get to heaven if you’re missing any one of those.

For instance, the Bible says, unless you repent and ask for forgiveness, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. So A — we must Ask for God's mercy. B is — Be merciful to each other. Remember Matthew 25, the teaching on the sheep and the goats. If we’re not merciful to each other, we won’t make it to heaven. And then C — Completely trust in God’s mercy — is the biggest.

The only way we get to heaven is grace. Grace is the only thing that gets us to heaven. Jesus told St. Faustina that trust is the vessel by which all grace is received. And trust is the heart of St. Faustina’s message and the devotion of Divine Mercy. So the devotion helps us live a stronger message of Divine Mercy.

Please also share the acrostic way to remember the five channels of grace, too.

The devotion that he gave to St. Faustina was five new channels of grace that we know by FINCH:

“F” is the feast of Divine Mercy.

“I” is the image of Divine Mercy.

“N” is the novena of Divine Mercy.

“C” is the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, and

“H” is the Hour of Mercy — 3 p.m.