Blessed Sacrament Church, Rapid City, is hosting a Divine Mercy Lenten Mission with Fr. Mark Baron, MIC, from the National Shrine of Divine Mercy, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The mission will be held the evenings of Monday – Wednesday, March 23-25. Confessions and Adoration will be available and a Healing Mass will be celebrated by Bishop Scott Bullock on March 25. Father Baron answered questions via email for the West River Catholic.

Why did you choose this particular order? My community is the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception. I chose the Marians because they were faithful to the teachings of the Catholic Church and also because of my devotion to the Blessed Mother and Divine Mercy. Your career began in engineering.

Is it a hurdle to move from engineering to the priesthood? There are a lot of priests who have a background in science. Typically, that aids in the study of theology because theology is an analytic discipline and guys who have degrees in science are typically analytical so that is helpful in the transition from engineering to seminary formation and priestly life.

We are living in turbulent times, why do we have to give and receive mercy? We have to first learn how to receive mercy in order to give mercy. The heart of this dynamic is where Jesus says, “Be merciful as your heavenly Father is Merciful.” Since you can’t give what you don’t have, we thus have the need to learn how to have our hearts filled with God’s mercy so that we can learn how to give that mercy to others.

How will retreatants learn to trust God more — isn’t that relinquishing control? Trust helps us to give up being a control freak. As creatures, we humans can’t do it all ourselves. We need the help of others. Trust is about relying on others. When we learn to trust in God by relying on his help, then, we become more free and peaceful because the weight of trying to control everything is lifted from us.

How have you seen divine mercy working in people’s lives? The goal of each Divine Mercy Mission is for the people to have an encounter experience with the Merciful Savior. The mission is organized so that people can have an opportunity for this to happen through the preached word and through his sacramental presence. When you have that encounter it changes the way you see God, yourself, others and the Church. In varying degrees, this is what happens to those who participate in the mission.

The parish lists retreat information on the website blessedsacramentchurch.org/divine-mercy-mission.