Enriching. Informative. Explore the depth and breadth of the Catholic faith at St. Mary's One Topic One Night evenings. These evenings provide our parish community a platform to foster dialogue, cultivate enriching ideas, and continue an appreciation of learning as an active and lifelong process.
What is One Topic One Night?
One Night One Topic continues online!
Stay connected to your parish community and grow in your faith--the One Night One Topic evenings are coming straight into your living room! The format and topics will vary, but the idea is to provide opportunity to dialogue, grow and learn together. Check back soon for upcoming topics and dates.
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Recent One Topic One Night
At our last online One Night One Topic, Father Keith shared reflections on Divine Mercy. He covered the history and theological meaning of Divine Mercy, to explain its significance in the life of the Church and our own spiritual lives.
Here are some of the highlights.
God is love. I John 4:8
The Early Church Fathers describe Divine Mercy as an attribute of God, similar to Saint John’s God is love—God is mercy. And, because, as the Stockbridge Fathers explain, “God loves us—all of us—He wants us to recognize that His mercy is greater than our sins, so that we will call upon Him with trust, receive His mercy, and let it flow through us to others. Thus, all will come to share His joy.”
Saint Pope John Paul II instituted the Feast Day of Divine Mercy on the First Sunday after Easter, demonstrating mercy flows from the resurrection. The private revelations, given to Saint Faustina by Our Lord, encourages the faithful to remember that God is merciful. This love and mercy is also revealed in Scripture.
Old Testament understandings of mercy incorporate faithfulness, unity, and fidelity, as well as images of the love a mother has for a child. Mercy is supremely lived out in life of Christ in the New Testament. His fidelity to the mission of the Father inspires a love that pours out in forgiveness, an inexhaustible sacrifice of blood and water bleeding from His pierced side so that man might be saved.
The scriptural Revelation of Mercy is accessible to everyone:
- ask for mercy by repenting; the Sacrament of Reconciliation is the normative and recommended manner of becoming restored to full communion with God.
- be merciful by forgiving others, and
- completely trust in Jesus by becoming dependent on Him as children.
While Divine Mercy is necessary for all people, the devotion to Divine Mercy is optional. The message, given to Saint Faustina, includes five ways of devotion:
- Veneration of the image of Jesus
- Observing the Feast Day of Divine Mercy
- Acknowledging the Death of Our Lord during the 3 o’clock hour, The Hour of Mercy
- Reciting the Chaplet of Mercy
- Finally, the way most encouraged and preferred by Jesus, was the Novena as given by Our Lord to Saint Faustina.