Divine Mercy Sunday is a beautiful day to celebrate, but the mercy message should be celebrated — and lived out — all 365 days a year.

Dr. Brian Thatcher, a medical doctor, well remembers the first Divine Mercy Sunday celebration he attended more than 35 years ago in Seffner, Florida, followed by a spaghetti dinner.

A week later, the diocesan newspaper at the time carried an interview with a woman who had come to that Divine Mercy Sunday in thanksgiving for blessings received because “the year before on Mercy Sunday, she had asked the Lord to heal her son of a heroin addiction. That’s a very difficult addiction to heal,” Thatcher vividly recalled. “The next day, he came to her and told her that he was going to go cold turkey, totally off the drugs. He had been drug-free for a whole year. She came back to thank God.”

Thatcher said this is the crux of the message: “The Lord said, ‘On that day, the floodgates of heaven are open.’ And so it’s a great day to ask the Lord of our needs, our things that are breaking our heart in ourselves or our spouses or our children or whatever. But that was my first experience with Mercy Sunday.”

“What’s exciting for me to see over the years is how it has changed lives,” Thatcher said. One of the ways is also through the Eucharistic Apostles of Divine Mercy, a lay apostolate of the Congregation of Marians of the Immaculate Conception that he founded and directs. It has spread to more than 45 countries with cenacles (groups) studying and applying the message of Divine Mercy both locally and abroad to change people’s lives both spiritually and physically.

Thatcher shared some of the EADM’s international work.

At the direction of Father Joseph Roesch, superior general of the Marian Congregation worldwide, Thatcher has been assisting the Marians in Cagayan de Oro on the island of Mindanao, Philippines, to continue helping to assist the people and rebuild the town after a devastating typhoon on the night of Dec. 16, 2011, when Typhoon Sendong ravaged the coastal areas of Cagayan de Oro, killing 1,800 residents and leaving 12,000 families homeless. Thatcher said, “Many families lost their young children who were swept away and never found.”

The Marian Fathers partnered with other religious congregations to purchase 7.3 hectares of cleared land on which they began building the Mother of Divine Mercy Village. Thatcher described what has happened over the years. “To date, more than 550 homes have been built and given to destitute families, along with support services like a day care center, health center, staff housing, and a multipurpose building for gatherings.”

Marian Father Dariusz Drzewiecki, known there as Father Darek, has been with the project since the beginning and, in 2021, was named village administrator. Thatcher described him as “a totally dedicated priest who feeds the people spiritually but also tries to alleviate their suffering. He knows the families, struggles and brokenness and understands the future of the Church is in the hands of the youth. He has students he is helping get an education, and each one on scholarship is actively involved in the Church as lectors, acolytes, choir members and more.”

As this project continues, Thatcher pointed out much that still needs to be done: drilling a new well and installing a water distribution system to serve more than 5,000 residents; completing the Mother of Mercy Chapel that was started in 2022 with an altar, pews, baptismal font, and confessional; adding an adoration chapel attached to the church; expanding the trade school beyond one room and adding more sewing machines to teach trade skills and support families; expanding the small medical clinic for weekly doctor and dentist visits, plus medications and medical supplies; and helping young students with schooling.

Another place where EADM is putting the Divine Mercy message into action is in South Sudan. Several years ago, Thatcher met Father Charles Abbud from South Sudan and they became friends. In 2023, Father Abbud’s bishop, Stephen Ameyu Martin Mulla, was appointed cardinal of South Sudan. In response to the cardinal’s request, EADM has helped build five wells, as the villages close to Father Abbud had no nearby water source; helped support a young women's computer school; and is collaborating with Project C.U.R.E. to send a large container of basic medical supplies to equip a desperately needed outpatient medical clinic.

Of course, the cenacles are active nationally. Cenacles study in a systematic way the Diary and the writings of St. Faustina, the mercy messenger. The focus is on the spirituality of Divine Mercy and its devotion. “We'll start with the basics of the devotion, and then we help them move to the concept that it’s a way of life,” Thatched explained. But there is another essential part to the devotion, as Jesus told Faustina: works of mercy.

“We encourage each local parish EADM cenacle group to do small works of mercy in their local parish,” Thatcher explained. “Members visit the sick and elderly in nursing homes, work at soup kitchens, support parish pro-life efforts, and pray for the dying during Eucharistic adoration.”

He added, “And, of course, we’ve got the end-of-life issues. People are looked on with Alzheimer’s and genetic disorders, and all these health issues, as if they’re of no value; they’re not ‘perfect,’ and, therefore, their life is expendable,” as this thinking goes. “We help people realize we have to love everyone and try our best to be like Christ. When people look in our eyes, we want them to see Jesus, and we need to look in other people’s eyes and see Jesus as well. Mother Teresa wanted her sisters to see Jesus Christ in the poor.”

“It’s a Eucharistic message,” Thatcher emphasized. “It talks about reconciliation, how that’s where Jesus is and where the greatest miracles take place. It talks about forgiveness. Faustina wrote that we resemble God most when we forgive our neighbor.”

Living mercifully is a blessing, he has found.

“I’ve grown even more in love with helping the needy and the poor,” knowing “that we’re to reach out and be the heart and the hands and the feet of Jesus,” he said.

Overall, he added, “I’ve seen when people start learning the message, they are a totally different person, the way they handle their lives. And I’ve even it in the priests because I’ve traveled all over and spoken all over.

“When people take this message in, they become so filled with joy. They will be filled with the Holy Spirit and realize that the real fruit is that we’re living mercy.”