 Hello, my name is Father Michael Gaitley. I'm a priest of the Mirion Fathers of the Immaculate Conception. I live and work at the National Shrine of Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. And the message of Divine Mercy that comes to us through St. Faustina is an important part of my experience of a discipleship with Christ. And the reason I say that is because, you know, I'd grown up Catholic. I knew that I'd heard about Jesus' love and God's love and mercy. But it never really went from my head to my heart until I discovered the powerful testimony of St. Faustina Kvalska, who's somebody who reiterates the heart of the gospel, which is God's mercy for sinners. It's the message that Jesus Christ didn't come for the righteous, but for sinners. That Jesus Christ has the heart of the Good Shepherd, who even leaves behind the 99 to go in search of the one lost sheep. It's a message that God's mercy is like water that goes to find the lowest spot. As it says in the diary of Faustina, reiterating the gospel, the greater the sinner, the greater his right to my mercy. And when I heard that testimony of St. Faustina, that message that I'd heard many times through readings at Mass and homilies and things, for some reason really clicked. And so I think for discipleship what's most important is that we not just know about our faith, but that we are able to experience it in our hearts. And the central message of the gospel, the central truth that needs to go from our heads to our hearts and into our lives is the truth that God is love, the truth that God is merciful love, the truth that God loves us even when we're weak, broken and sinful. In fact, the more weak, broken and sinful we are, the more his merciful love reaches out to us. Now, that's hard for us to grasp because a lot of times the way we love people is, you know, if they're good or funny or talented or all these things, but God doesn't love us because we're so good but because he's so good. It's a reminder that the times where we're in greatest darkness, the times when we're feeling most down or discouraged, is the time his merciful love is going out to us most. When we begin to realize that, when we begin to grasp God's love and actually believe in it, not just in our minds but in our hearts, that's when we begin to experience what Pope Francis calls the joy of the gospel. And for me, that's the heart of the Christian life, is to know that we are loved by Christ, that he fills us with his peace and his joy when we experience his divine mercy. So, for me, that's being a disciple of Christ and that's really living in his life, which is the life of joy and following him.