Since I too love the Divine Mercy Chaplet, I personally have no objection to it, nor have I heard anyone suggest an objection, but I would imagine, as you suppose, that there are those who would find it objectionable, based on their mistaken understanding of what Christ did for us at Calvary.
He died on the Cross as the single sacrifice sufficient to attone for our sins, the one and only sacrifice acceptable to God. On this we all agree, but they, without understanding the concept of “works” fail to see that we are all called to follow Christ in each and every one of His steps. That the example of His life was meant to be followed by those of us who love Him with our whole hearts.
This means, we need to be willing to love Him enough to suffer so that we may be better conformed to the will of Our Father. We need to follow Him in His respect and honor for Mary, His Mother, Mary, the Mother of God.
We need to be willing to follow His example of humbling Himself to the Fathers who went to heaven before His time on Earth, as He spoke with Moses and Elijah at the Transfiguration. God gave Moses the Law and He gave Prophesy to Elijah. Was Jesus discussing with them that they were now irrelevant, that He came to make all the previous communications between God and Man old school.
If so, why would Paul have exhorted Timothy to understand that All scripture is profitable, at a time when this referred to the Old Testament?
This prayer leaves us with a bit of a conundrum, if we refuse to accept Mary as worthy of honor, merely by nature of her being Christ’s mother, if for none of the other incredible things we know of her, for it asks us to pray the “Hail Mary”.
We will have problems if we don’t accept the possibility that repetition of prayer is not always the same as vain repetition, for didn’t Christ, while praying at Gethsemene, pray repeatedly during the course of 3 hours, while the Apostles slept. Certainly one can repeat a request without doing so in vain, for God, our Father loves us very much and a heartfelt prayer is never in vain, as all Love for Him is good and all prayer which retains and reflects that Love cannot be vain.
Is it possible for someone to say the Rosary in vain, or even the Divine Mercy Chaplet? Yes, if it’s being said merely for the hope of receiving the promises attached without any underlying understanding of God and no Love for Him, it could conceivably be reduced to a superstitious act, in which case, it would be a gross act and vain indeed. But this does not begin to describe the passion I have for Christ when I pray.
And more specific to the Divine Mercy Chaplet, it assumes that God’s mercy would respond to our prayers and that Christ’s sacrifice alone was not sufficient to ensure the salvation of the whole world.
Well, I don’t know, but I’d say that we haven’t had Heaven decend upon the world just yet, and we’re 2000 years after the fact of His most worthy sacrifice. People continue to sin, even as we know that God wills that all come to Him, even as we know that Jesus loves us, 'cause the Bible tells us so. So what’s missing? Our cooperating with His plan, just as Adam and Eve failed to cooperate, Jesus and Mary did cooperate. Now it’s our turn.
We need to cooperate with the Will of God. We need to accept that we, of our own power, are not sufficient to merit the rewards of eternal life, but that if we are willing to humble ourselves, to accept Christ as our Savior and to suffer the cross in our daily lives, if we imitate what His life contained, we can obtain the promises of Christ. And if each and every one of us animate the Body of Christ, according to His will, rather than our own, miracles will never cease.
CARose
