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D Eucharistic Apostles of The Divine Mercy Newsletter Summer 2017

Next year will mark the 25th anniversary of

the founding of the first Divine Mercy cenacle — at Nativity Catholic Church in Brandon, Florida — thus beginning, in seed form, what would become known today as Eucharistic Apostles of The Divine Mercy (EADM).

A few years later, under the leadership of Fr. Seraphim Michalenko, MIC, our manuals were published to guide people through the writings of St. Faustina. Shortly thereafter, we saw expo-nential growth across the United States and in other countries. There are now more than 3,500 cenacles in this country, and we are active in more than 40 countries.

Not long ago, I attended a fundraiser for poor Nicaraguan schoolchildren in Tampa, Florida, and a monsignor said that there were groups of cenacles in Nicaragua’s capital city, Managua. I was so happy to hear that, as I know they are growing elsewhere in Central America.

Even more recently, visitors to the Marian Helpers Center took our materials back to Spain and hope to start cenacles. They also will be putting Spanish subtitles on our “Cenacle of the Divine Mercy” shows so that they will be aired on televi-sion in Spain. The work continues, and with the help of strong Divine Mercy devotees all over the world, we will continue to follow the Lord’s command to “Tell the whole world of My great mercy” (Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, 300).

I have met so many dedicated devotees on fire with the love of God, and I want to give just one example of a devotee who works tirelessly in her diocese and parish to spread the message.

Elizabeth Gomez of Brentwood, California, has organized

numerous conferences. She’s traveled through-out her diocese to set up cenacles and speak on Divine Mercy, and she has even traveled to Mexico and Guatemala to start cenacles there. This is what she had to say:

I began a mission to the Divine Mercy in 2010 at Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Brentwood, California, under the leadership of Fr. Carl Arcosa. He invited me to partici-pate as a coordinator of the Latino com-munity’s Divine Mercy group. We started praying the Chaplet on

Fridays and began a cenacle using the EADM manuals and format. Now a Diocesan ministry, the apostolate has about 150 members and 11 Spanish-speaking cenacles.

We have Divine Mercy conferences twice a year with over 350 people attending. We also give parish missions to spread the devotion and start new cenacles. Every cenacle performs works of mercy, including visiting families weekly with images of Divine Mercy, teaching them about the devotion, and praying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy for the family’s needs.

God has allowed me to see His mercy in others through spiritual and physical healings and conversions. One lady in a cenacle was of another faith, and after a conference, she converted and is a very active member.

I receive invitations to speak on Divine Mercy in the United States and abroad. I was so happy to help EADM get started in the Diocese of Sacramento, California. I spoke in Mexico and Guatemala and started cenacles there. Last year, I talked to parishioners and had a Divine Mercy workshop with a focus on the works of mercy.

By Bryan Thatcher, MD

CenaCles Continue

to grow!

Elizabeth Gomez of Brentwood, California, traveled to Guatemala to start a Divine Mercy cenacle there.

Our local EADM group has been active for many years, and St. Margaret Mary Church has been instrumental in our efforts to tell others of His Divine Mercy. We look forward to Divine Mercy Sunday, as last year was especially beautiful with a reenactment during the 3 o’clock Holy Hour of St. Faustina’s conversations with Jesus. Following Benediction, 65 people made their consecration to Divine Mercy for the first time. A jubilant dinner and fellowship in our Benish Hall concluded the celebration.

Last year, as the Eucharistic Apostles of The Divine Mercy min-istry leader, I visited cenacles in other parishes to help them get started. In August, St. Margaret Mary EADM joined those from St. Helen Church in Georgetown, Texas, at the Diocese of Austin Women’s Conference, titled “Face of Mercy.” Eucharistic Apostles read passages from the Diary and prayed the Chaplet for the sick. More than 500 women attended.

From Sept. 1 to Oct. 4, more than 35 members participated in the consecration to Divine Mercy using Fr. Michael Gaitley’s 33 Days to Merciful Love or in Spanish: Consoling the Heart of Jesus. On St. Faustina’s feast day, they recited their consecration prayers in English and Spanish at a Mass celebrated by Fr. Barry Cuba, SMMC, an EADM spiritual mentor.

Last September, I held a “Night of Reflection” on the works of mercy for EADM Cenacle 8, including the favorite tradition of singing “We Are the Light of the World.” On the following day, that cenacle celebrated its EADM induction ceremony. Afterwards, other English and Spanish cenacle members and people who share the Divine Mercy devotion assembled to pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy with the newly inducted. During the Jubilee Year of Mercy, St. Margaret Mary Church saw an increase in cenacles. Two new English cenacles were added after the parish Stewardship Fair in September.

That same month, I presented a talk to Theology on Tap, a pro-gram of the Diocese of Austin for young adults in their 20s and 30s, married and single, who want to experience the wisdom and hospi-tality of the Catholic Church in a unique and social way. My topic was “Conversion through Prayer — Divine Mercy.” In October, an EADM member from St. Vincent de Paul Church in Austin and myself attended the Divine Mercy Congress in Houston.

In November, St. Margaret Mary’s EADM group hosted a pil-

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C E N A C L E S U P D A T E

Members of the Divine Mercy cenacle in Austin, Texas.

LAKESIDE, California Barbara Sheddy wrote and told us:

Eucharistic Apostles of The Divine Mercy was officially introduced to Our Lady of Perpetual Help parish in Lakeside, California, on Jan. 10, 2017. After studying and preparing weekly for over a year, each member was thoroughly committed to live the mission of mercy. Invitations were circulated to the parishioners to attend the induction ceremony as well as the breakfast reception afterwards. Our spiritual advisor, Deacon Patrick Root, led the ceremony with our pastor, Fr. Ron Buchmiller, in attendance. As we read the prayer in unison, the words moved our hearts in amazing ways and made us even more determined to live a merciful life more profoundly than ever.

Our major focus is to promote Eucharistic Adoration by invit-ing more to attend and providing worship materials as well as a “Culture of Life Holy Hour.” We pray the Rosary and Divine Mercy Chaplet as we distribute literature every Friday in front of a Planned Parenthood abortion mill in our neighborhood. In addi-tion, members live their apostolic calling by visiting and praying with the sick and dying, providing CDs, pamphlets, and books at church, serving at Culture of Life Family Services, Cursillo, a local food bank, a grandparent program in schools, and various other activities in the community and the parish.

We pray EADM is beginning a long history in our parish!

Members of the Divine Mercy cenacle in Lakeside, California.

AUSTIN, TexasRoni Cook wrote and told us:

grimage and EADM workshop in Corn Hill, Texas, at Holy Trinity Church. Seventy people representing 12 different parishes attended. After becoming acquainted over lunch, there was a talk and small-group discussion focused on the five elements of the Divine Mercy devotion given to St. Faustina by Jesus. Participants shared what their parishes did during the Jubilee Year of Mercy. Barbara Bartley shared why it is important to be inducted into the Eucharistic Apostles of The Divine Mercy and to engage in works of mercy. A highlight of the event was walking through Holy Trinity’s Holy Doors. Pastor Fr. Stephen Nesrsta celebrated Mass for the group and encouraged them to live the message of mercy despite the closing of the Jubilee Year of Mercy, which was the following weekend. We ended the day by pray-ing the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, the Litany of Divine Mercy, and other prayers. However, one new EADM member returned to the Holy Doors three times that week to bring people from her assisted living facility in Cedar Park, Texas.

A week after the English-speaking conference, Spanish-speaking EADM members from around the diocese attended a workshop/retreat at Still Waters Retreat Center in Austin. Maritza Haralson and I shared our EADM experiences. Many new relationships were formed between EADM cenacles at parishes during this Holy Year of Mercy.

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Our EADM cenacle at St. Margaret Mary parish started meeting in the fall of 2015, and we all have a love of the Divine Mercy message. I am writing this article to report on a recent meeting we had, a meet-ing charged with a distinct passion from all in attendance to serve others. In our discussions with each other, we found that all of us were active in spreading the Divine Mercy message in our own individual lives, not just here at St. Margaret Mary. We each revealed a similar passion for it. Here are some of the activities of our members:

Roman is a visiting Eucharistic minister at Christ the King and advocated for God’s mercy for three parishioners at a nursing home to receive the Eucharist who were not receiving. He stepped up and brought them the Eucharist, getting per-mission to do so from Fr. Phil.

Pat has a regular ministry at nursing homes and through Froedtert Hospital.

Marianne advocates for those who’ve lost loved ones and continuously prays the Chaplet before the Blessed Sacrament and offers up her suffer-ings for others.

I love street ministry and talking one-on-one to people I meet, pass-ing out Divine Mercy prayercards, and, if the situation allows, I tell them that God’s mercy is for them — basically available to everyone for the asking. I’ve also recently done some writing on God’s mercy (as yet unpublished). So we agreed, as EADM lay ministers, that it is valid for us

to minister individually; we are not locked into always ministering together.

Pat shared a wonderful Divine Mercy ministry story she experienced just recently. She, herself, was grieving the loss of her sister, Barbara. She had been given time off from her regular duties at Froedtert to grieve, when she would normally be pray-ing for the patients. Someone was going to cover for her. However, she felt the Holy Spirit strongly prompting her to forego her own grieving. Pat notified them she would come in after all, saying, “I’m ready to come back.” Once there, she began pray-ing the Chaplet for a dying woman, right at her bedside! She told the woman, “Jesus spoke to this simple woman in Poland [St. Faustina] and asked her to say this prayer at the bedside and told her He will be their Merciful Savior and not their Judge. So you will go to Heaven if you accept His mercy.” The woman smiled peacefully.

Stories like this helped us realize we had many ideas to infuse into the life of our cenacle in 2017. We read from the EADM Formation Manual that we are being shaped into a close-knit Catholic community and being prepared to minister the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, most especially to pray for the sick and dying. We are to reach the most hard-ened of sinners, essentially to save souls that would otherwise be judged by our Lord as unworthy of Heaven. At the same time, we realized this kind of outreach may not be interesting or attractive to everyone. On this evening, it felt like we reached a sense of ourselves — of being a commu-nity committed to serving others.

Pray for us as we strive to lovingly spread the message of mercy in our area to those hurting and in need of mercy.

MILWAUKEE, WisConsin

Roman Pikula wrote and told us:

C E N A C L E S U P D A T E

Cenacle members in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

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I t seems as if every family is affected by one sort of addiction or another. Drugs, alcohol, tobacco, sexual issues, overeating,

workaholism, gambling, and more take a severe toll on our marriages and families.

To me, the Divine Mercy mes-sage is a healing message of love and hope. It’s a 12-step program in a different format — that is to say, Jesus is the ultimate “Higher Power.” And if we realize we have a problem, recognize that there is a way to fulfillment, and then turn our will and our lives over to Him, we have already immersed ourselves in the first three steps of the 12-step program.

Step One is about admitting we have a problem and it has control over us. In Step Two we realize there is a “Higher Power” who could restore us to sanity, and in Step Three we decide to turn our will and our lives over to Him.

When we say the Our Father, we pray, “Thy will be done,” and Jesus asked that below the Image of Divine Mercy the words, “Jesus I Trust in You,” be inscribed. Isn’t that another way of saying, “Thy will be done?” And aren’t we really saying that we must keep trying to turn all our anxieties, discouragements, and fears over to Him and say “Thy Will be done?”

Step Four asks us to take a moral inventory of our lives, and in Step Five we admit to God, ourselves, and another person the exact nature of our wrongdoings. In our faith, Step Four and Five involve preparation and going to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Jesus told St. Faustina, “Tell souls where they are to look for solace; that is, in the Tribunal of Mercy [the Sacrament of Reconciliation]. There the greatest miracles take place [and] are incessantly repeated … it suffices to come with faith to the feet of My representative and to reveal to him one’s misery, and the miracle of Divine Mercy will be fully demonstrated. Were a soul like a decaying corpse so that from a human standpoint, there would be no [hope of] restoration and everything would already be lost, it is not so with God. The miracle of Divine Mercy restores that soul in full” (Diary, 1448).

In Step Six we develop a willingness to change; this is a fruit of our spiritual eyes being opened as we face our weaknesses and wretched-ness. This is a process and not an overnight fix. And in Step Seven we ask Him to remove our shortcomings as we realize in a deeper way that we must be like the tax collector as he cried out, “God, be merci-ful to me, a sinner!” (Lk 18:11) This requires a frequent examination of conscience done in a spirit of total humility. The words of Mother Directress to St. Faustina at the end of her novitiate ring true: “Sister,

let simplicity and humility be the characteristic traits of your soul. Go through life like a little child, always trusting, always full of simplicity and humility, content with everything, happy in every circumstance. There, where others fear, you will pass calmly along, thanks to this simplicity and humil-ity” (Diary, 55). The soul better understands that the more we begin to heal and be honest with ourselves, the more we

realize our dependence on God and our need for Him in our daily lives. It is as if the Image of Divine Mercy with

rays of water representing the Sacraments of Mercy (Reconciliation and Eucharist) flood our souls.

The soul is learning to daily trust more in God and not in alcohol or their drug of choice. It

is beginning to understand the Lord’s words to St. Faustina: “The greatest sinners would achieve great sanctity, if only they would trust in My mercy” (Diary, 1784).

It is analogous to the ABCs of mercy; the first step (the A) is we must “ask for His mercy.” While

this is happening, Jesus is healing our broken hearts and telling us that there

is a much better way than the path of sin and brokenness. But we also are begin-

ning to realize that the addict, through his addictive behavior, has hurt many

people, and the next logical step is to identify those we have harmed. In Step Eight we recognize those we have harmed, and in Step

Nine we make amends when possible and when it would not be det-rimental to them or others. This requires new found humility and an inner peace that would never exist without the Lord. Not everyone is as forgiving as the father in the story of the Prodigal Son (see Lk 15), and those we have hurt may spurn our efforts at reconciling. We may need to heavily rely on the Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” And as one continues healing through the mercy of God, the soul realizes that it is happier than it has ever been and it doesn’t want to rely on those things that have hurt so many people.

In Step Ten, we continue to take personal inventory. This is done through prayer, meditation, and by keeping a pulse on our lives. In Step Eleven, through prayer and meditation, we continue that long-ing and search for a stronger relationship with Him. And, in Step Twelve, as we realize that we are on the right path through our spiri-tual awakening, we want to tell others of this newfound antidote to our brokenness. For Jesus told St. Faustina, “Mankind will not have peace until it turns with trust to My mercy” (Diary, 300).

Remember, Jesus is the Living Water, and the key to living the message of mercy is to rely on Him and not on all the alcohol, drugs, food, shopping, the Internet, or whatever addictions we may have. Those are all fleeting. We must let the words “Jesus, I trust in You” be our anchor in life.

Divine Mercy and Addictions

Call the EADM office toll-free at 1-877-380-0727, and we’ll send you a free informational packet with a DVD on the ministry.

Want to start a cenacle?

By Bryan Thatcher, MD

NEED A SPEAKER?

EADM relies on your generosity to keep the ministry running. Help us continue to bring the message of Divine Mercy

to a hurting world.

Please donate to EADM today.

Call 1-800-462-7426,visit marian.org/eadm

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Bryan Thatcher, MD, founder of EADM, will be a speaker at the following events:l Aug. 19-20 — Diocese of Sacramento Spanish-speaking Divine Mercy

Conference. Contact Carmen Martinez at 916-721-0730 for more information.l Sept. 30 — Divine Mercy Conference at Ramada Inn Hotel, Albany, New York.

Contact Scott Scaria at 860-289-2606 for more information.l Oct. 5 — Evening talks at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, Arlington, Virginia. For more

information, contact John Lilly at 703-836-4700. l Oct. 26-27 — Divine Mercy Conference for Healthcare Professionals in Cleveland.

Call the EADM office at 1-877-380-0727 for more information. l Nov. 25 -26 — Divine Mercy Conference at Good Shepherd Church (parish hall) in

Pittsburg, California. For more information, contact Elizabeth Gomez at 925-470-5944. He would love to speak to your parish. For more information, call 1-877-380-0727.

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