It was the discovery of the writings of St Faustina and the messages of mercy given to her by Jesus that prompted Fr Chris Alar MIC’s journey to the priesthood. Source: Melbourne Catholic.
“The Divine Mercy brought me from being a secular, worldly American who only cared about his girlfriend and his business to being a Catholic priest,” Fr Alar said.
The US-based priest toured Australia and New Zealand from May 27 to June 4 to promote the message of Divine Mercy.
On a tight schedule during his time in Australia — moving from location to location, hosting public conversations, and giving interviews and talks based on his book, Understanding the Divine Mercy — Fr Alar fell ill towards the end of his trip, but remained joyful and articulate, exuding passion for his life’s work in spreading knowledge of God’s mercy.
“I’ve had really bad luck on this trip with getting sick, a driver not showing up to take me to the airport, breaking things, losing things,” Fr Alar said, “but the people have been amazing.”
Heartening as well has been the turnout at his events. “Every place we’ve gone has been a tremendous turnout. Sold out, full capacity … A lot of people are interested in learning about the faith, which is encouraging for me.”
In some ways, this is not surprising since Fr Alar’ ministry in the US has gained an enormous following both nationally and internationally. One of his big media projects is the Saturday-morning Explaining the Faith video series, which covers a range of different topics and which has reached 83 million views since COVID began.
His other big project is with global Catholic media network EWTN, where Fr Alar hosts Living the Divine Mercy, featuring stories about people living the message of the Divine Mercy. He said the show reaches more than 400 million households worldwide.
FULL STORY
Fr Chris Alar MIC: how the Divine Mercy changed his life (By Christian Bergmann, Melbourne Catholic)
