The Chaplet of Divine Mercy
Given at Vilnius, 1935
Said on ordinary rosary beads, in a quarter of an hour, and customarily at three o’clock. The order below is the whole of it: what is said on which bead, and how many times.
The Beginning
The chaplet is said on an ordinary rosary of five decades — the same beads in the same order, with different words. Begin with the sign of the cross. The opening prayer is optional, and is what is said where the chaplet is prayed aloud together.
You expired, Jesus, but the source of life gushed forth for souls, and the ocean of mercy opened up for the whole world. O Fount of Life, unfathomable Divine Mercy, envelop the whole world and empty Yourself out upon us.
Three times: O Blood and Water, which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fountain of Mercy for us, I trust in You!
The Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Creed
Said on the first three beads, as at the beginning of the rosary. Each has its own page: the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Apostles’ Creed.
On the Large Bead
On the bead before each decade — where the Our Father is said in the rosary. Five times in all, once at the head of each decade.
Eternal Father, I offer you the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your Dearly Beloved Son, Our Lord, Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.
On the Ten Small Beads
Ten times, on the beads where the Hail Mary is said in the rosary. Then back to the large bead for the next decade, and so through all five.
For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.
In Conclusion
Said three times, after the fifth decade. The words are the Trisagion, chanted by the Syrian bishops at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 and in the Greek liturgies ever since; only the last clause is proper to the chaplet.
Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us and on the whole world.
The Closing Prayer
Optional, and printed with the chaplet wherever it is given in full.
Eternal God, in whom mercy is endless and the treasury of compassion inexhaustible, look kindly upon us and increase Your mercy in us, that in difficult moments we might not despair nor become despondent, but with great confidence submit ourselves to Your holy will, which is Love and Mercy itself.
The chaplet was given to Sister Faustina Kowalska (1905–1938) at Vilnius on 13 and 14 September 1935 and recorded in her diary at §476. She was canonized by John Paul II on 30 April 2000 — the first canonization of the new millennium — and the Second Sunday of Easter was named Divine Mercy Sunday for the universal Church at the same time; the novena here leads into it. Three o’clock is the hour of Our Lord’s death, kept in the devotion as the Hour of Mercy. The English is the text the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops publishes, which is the wording in ordinary use; it keeps the modern register the devotion is everywhere printed in rather than the thee-and-thou of the older prayers in this book, and the capitals are theirs. The devotion’s own language is Polish and the Latin Coronilla in circulation is a translation of it, so no Latin is set beside the English the way it is at Benediction. The diary itself is a different matter: its English translation is in copyright to the Congregation of Marians of the Immaculate Conception, and nothing of it is reproduced here or on the novena beyond these prayers as the bishops publish them.
