Prayer Library

The Chaplet of Divine Mercy was given by Jesus to St. Maria Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun, in a series of revelations between 1931 and 1938 recorded in her Diary: Divine Mercy in My Soul. The chaplet is a powerful intercessory prayer offered for the conversion of sinners, the consolation of the dying, and the mercy of God upon the whole world. Jesus told Faustina that whoever prays this chaplet will receive 'great mercy at the hour of death' — and that He delights especially in this prayer offered at 3:00 PM, the Hour of Mercy (the hour of His death on Calvary). The chaplet is prayed on standard rosary beads, which makes it accessible to anyone with a rosary, and takes approximately ten minutes. Devotion to Divine Mercy was suppressed for many years, but Pope St. John Paul II — himself a Pole and a fellow countryman of St. Faustina — canonized her on April 30, 2000, and established Divine Mercy Sunday (the second Sunday of Easter) as a feast for the universal Church. The Chaplet of Divine Mercy has become one of the most widely-prayed devotions in the modern Church, especially favored by hospital chaplains, hospice volunteers, and those praying for the conversion of loved ones. It is the daily prayer at the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and at the Sanctuary of Divine Mercy in Łagiewniki, Kraków — the place where Faustina lived, died, and is now entombed.

St. Faustina Kowalska