Fr. Peter Stravinskas has often written about St. Augustine’s description of God’s grace as moving each of us from misery to mercy. This message is desperately needed in our world today, as misery has crept into our society at an increasingly tragic and alarming rate. Our research for this commentary found examples of such wretchedness everywhere.

In Lithuania, for example, Julijonas Urbonas has created the design for a bizarre ride called the “Euthanasia Coaster.” In theory, this would be an amusement park ride designed to enable the sick and suffering to die. Some call it the “death machine.” Urbonas is quoted as saying “it would be ‘engineered to humanely—with elegance and euphoria—take the life of a human being.’”

In Congress, Democrats have introduced the Women’s Health Protection Act that, should it become law, would eradicate every pro-life incremental law in the nation. Thus far, the proposal has the support of 176 Democrats in the House and 48 Democrats in the Senate.

In addition, senators have gone on record approving the creation of animal-human embryos. Considering the fact that there is now nearly universal agreement that sexual and reproductive healthcare are considered to be human rights, we will see more—not less—of such aberrations in our laws. If we can kill our children before they are born, why not experiment with mixing human and animal cells?

Today there are virtually no limits to the atrocities human beings view as progress!

Perhaps one of the reasons for this is that, according to a Gallup Poll, nearly half of those Americans polled think that abortion is morally acceptable. In case the full impact of that has not dawned on you, it means that nearly half of us think it is moral to murder a baby.

While some suggest that the good news is that, among Republicans, only 26 percent agree, we find little solace in that number. Republicans have had plenty of chances to rid this nation of the murder but have failed. Words are cheap.

The truth is that these polling results are devastating to babies, to mothers and fathers, and to our aging and disabled population as well. This is so because, as we know, once one class of human beings is deemed irrelevant—or in the words of the Third Reich, “useless eaters”—it does not take long for that attitude to expand to others.

We dare not be surprised by this, as we are already at a tipping point. One writer even perceptively asked the searing question: “Aborting disabled babies is genocide, so why is it legal?”

Now is absolutely the time for those apostles of mercy—as Fr. Stravinskas wisely labeled people like you and me—to come to the fore and persist. As he wrote:

Our world, my dear people, needs to hear the message of mercy perhaps as no other age before. A culture of violence, death, destruction and despair can be healed only by mercy. It is no accident, I suspect, that in the last century—the century of blood and violence and alienation from God—that Almighty God would raise up a Polish nun to develop the theology of the Sacred Heart devotion. Interestingly, St. Faustina was the first saint canonized in the new millennium, expressing the hope of St. John Paul that this new millennium and new century would be more receptive to the love of God than the last. Thus, like St. Faustina, you and I must count ourselves among the apostles of mercy.

And while you might read those words and wonder where we can find that new century of people who are more receptive to the love of God, I have to tell you that that is our challenge. We are the beginning of this change; we must carry the message forward as our mission of hope and mercy to a nation devastated by misery.

Hold out your hands in love and share the good news that every human being is loved beyond measure by God our Father. No matter how awful the action, His mercy is greater.

As apostles of mercy, we cry out in prayer and in action for those broken souls to come to Him. May God’s Sacred Heart inspire each of us to do this every day.