Chaplet of Divine Mercy & Teens Are Having Less Sex

Drew Mariani (0:17)

Alright, let's pray the Chaplet. Can't wait to do that with you. If you want to dial in, 888-914-9149. I think there's one line actually open, believe it or not. My colleague Helen will be with me in a minute. Helen is on board, because Nick is off today, and I just want to invite you to pray if you want to pray.

This connects us to the divine. It really does. It connects us directly to God. I love prayer. Satan hates it, because you'll know this in your own life too, because I experience it too. Very distracted sometimes when you really want to pray, right? Or the mind goes in one area, or something comes up. It's difficult.

God is an intimate part of our life. He hears every prayer, and right now, whatever's going on in your family, your business, your world, let's pray. We'll do it together as a family. You're praying not just with me, but people all over the country, and literally around the world. In fact, I want to pray because we are one family for a heartbreaking story that has come out of Ecuador that made me stop. It's something I say all the time. It's not like a broken record about it. But I often think about the fragility of life, right? You don't know the day or the hour God's gonna call you. There was a Catholic priest who was celebrating Mass. You heard the news at the top of the hour here. They were reporting on it as well. Tim Heine was reporting on it.

Good place to die, but I would never imagine this would happen. Imagine saying Mass, you're celebrating Mass, and a large crucifix suddenly fell off the wall behind this priest, struck him, and killed him. And here's what I think makes the story especially poignant. Just moments before he died, before God called him home, this priest was speaking to his congregation about the fleeting nature of life.

And he reminded him that one day, I mean, all of us, we're all gonna die, and you and I are gonna die. Each of us is gonna die. And he said, you know, he says, the most meaningful moments of our lives are those spent with God and the people that we love.

While you're on this side of the veil, begin to live heaven. You can do that by this relationship with God, right? And spend it with people you love. Don't waste your time pursuing things that are empty and shallow, you know, that you will not be able to take with you. Invest in things that are lasting. Let's just think about that. Here's this priest reminding his congregation of the importance of being prepared for eternity and not knowing that his own earthly journey was about to come to an end just within moments.

And in Matthew 24, 44, the scripture tells us, you know, you have to be prepared for an hour you do not expect the man, the son of man, will come. And of course, you know, Jesus was speaking about his coming, and we're going to talk about that coming up after the chapel today. I'm going to talk about the return of Christ. I'm going to talk about the second coming. I'm going to talk about what St. Faustina recorded in her diary and is pretty telling because the Lord told St. Faustina he had chosen her to prepare the world for his return. So what does that mean? Is that still a thousand years off, or are you and I living in a special age? So we're going to get into that as well, but the bottom line for all of us, whatever year you are called to go home, live in a state of grace, right? Don't fear death, you know, but live your life with love, love for God and for those God put into your life, all right? Because the most important appointment of your life is not the one on your calendar. It's that moment when you stand before God. And I just pray to God I'm ready for that moment, right? If you ever hear about my passing, please pray for me, all right? Please. God's outside of time asking for mercy. And of course, I'll be praying for you as I do every day. I'm in studio here with Helen. She's my colleague. Always good to have her with us. Helen, thank you for being here.

Helen (4:07)

It's an honor to be here.

Everything that you're saying, such humility. This past weekend, I had the opportunity to hang out with a bunch of young families, but also in my own family, there's a lot of people who are sick right now. And in the context of everything that you're saying, I think when you're sick, it provides you a lot of opportunities for mercy in a smaller scale when you're not feeling well. It's hard to be merciful to the people around you, and you just get short-tempered. And I think when you've also got a young family as well, there's just craziness happening, and you're weighing a lot of emotions and snap decisions. And so I just like to pray for anybody today that it feels like they're struggling in those moments of mercy that our Lord provides to us, and whether we rise to the challenge and are merciful to the people around us as we hope God is merciful. I know it's difficult, and this Monday, I'm especially feeling that. So another intention, if I could, Drew, I know.