How to Pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet

The prayer

The Chaplet of Divine Mercy is a short prayer, prayed on ordinary rosary beads, that takes about seven minutes. It comes from St Faustina Kowalska, a Polish sister of Our Lady of Mercy, who recorded in her Diary in 1935 that Jesus had taught it to her. Her revelations are private revelation, which no Catholic is required to believe, but the Church has approved the devotion and canonized St Faustina in 2000, establishing Divine Mercy Sunday on the Sunday after Easter.

To begin. Make the Sign of the Cross. On the beads before the first decade, pray one Our Father, one Hail Mary and the Apostles' Creed. Some people add an optional opening prayer from the Diary.

On each large bead. Pray the short offering prayer of the chaplet, in which you offer to the eternal Father the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of his Son, Jesus Christ, in atonement for your sins and the sins of the whole world.

On each of the ten small beads. Pray the brief response of the chaplet, asking the Father, for the sake of the sorrowful Passion of Jesus, to have mercy on us and on the whole world.

Five times. Repeat the large bead and the ten small beads for all five decades.

To close. Pray the chaplet's closing doxology three times, addressing God as holy, mighty and immortal and asking his mercy on us and on the whole world. Some add an optional closing prayer from the Diary. End with the Sign of the Cross.

Where to find the words. The official English text of the chaplet's prayers is held by the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception, who promote the Divine Mercy message for the Church. You will find it in St Faustina's Diary, on their website (thedivinemercy.org), on Divine Mercy prayer cards, and in most parish prayer books.