This Sunday, April 15, 2012, is the Feast of Divine Mercy. It offers believers the extraordinary opportunity to have not only their sins forgiven, but the temporal punishment due them excused as well. All of this, and much, much more, has been promised to us by Our Lord out of the goodness and love of His merciful heart.
Of course Jesus’s love and mercy toward us has always existed, but it was in the early 20th century that He saw fit to bring the message of His mercy to the world by means of a humble, holy young woman named Helen Kowalska. We know her now as St. Faustina. The following, first published in Columbia Magazine in April 2003, is her story and the story of Jesus’ unstoppable quest for souls.
Of course Jesus’s love and mercy toward us has always existed, but it was in the early 20th century that He saw fit to bring the message of His mercy to the world by means of a humble, holy young woman named Helen Kowalska. We know her now as St. Faustina. The following, first published in Columbia Magazine in April 2003, is her story and the story of Jesus’ unstoppable quest for souls.
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Divine Mercy: The Spark That is Setting the World Aflame
By Melaine Ryther
Amidst rumors that he would be announcing his retirement due to failing health, Pope John Paul II traveled to Poland last summer and proclaimed a message far different to the expectant world. During a dedication Mass for the Shrine of Divine Mercy in the city of Krakow-Lagiewniki on August 17, 2002, the Pope announced: “Today, therefore, in this Shrine, I wish solemnly to entrust the world to Divine Mercy.”
The Divine Mercy devotion, though humble in its origin, offers nothing less than salvation and peace to all mankind. Efforts being conducted on many different fronts are furthering the hope that Catholics everywhere will soon know of the extraordinary graces promised by Our Lord to those who would follow His simple call to mercy and trust.
The Divine Mercy devotion, though humble in its origin, offers nothing less than salvation and peace to all mankind. Efforts being conducted on many different fronts are furthering the hope that Catholics everywhere will soon know of the extraordinary graces promised by Our Lord to those who would follow His simple call to mercy and trust.
St. Faustina: The Messenger
Helena Kowalska was born in the village of Glogowiec, Poland, on August 25, 1905. The third of ten children born to poor but devout parents, she exhibited an early love of prayer, work, obedience, and sensitivity to the poor. At age seven, she felt the first stirrings of a vocation in her heart, and before turning twenty entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, where she received her new name, Sister Maria Faustina.
To the outside observer, Faustina’s religious life was unexceptional, as she spent her days attending to kitchen and garden tasks, or acting as the doorkeeper in various convents. But interiorly, Faustina experienced an extraordinary communion with God, the extent of which was known only to her superiors. Her supernatural gifts included revelations, visions, hidden stigmata, bilocation, prophecy, and the reading of souls.
In 1934, at the urging of her spiritual director and, later, of Our Lord Himself, Faustina began keeping a diary of her divine revelations and mystical experiences. The result is the 600-page spiritual classic, Divine Mercy in My Soul, which continues to astound scholars to this day with its depth of spiritual and theological insights. She recorded this diary over the span of four years, ending it shortly before her death from tuberculosis in 1938.
Helena Kowalska was born in the village of Glogowiec, Poland, on August 25, 1905. The third of ten children born to poor but devout parents, she exhibited an early love of prayer, work, obedience, and sensitivity to the poor. At age seven, she felt the first stirrings of a vocation in her heart, and before turning twenty entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, where she received her new name, Sister Maria Faustina.
To the outside observer, Faustina’s religious life was unexceptional, as she spent her days attending to kitchen and garden tasks, or acting as the doorkeeper in various convents. But interiorly, Faustina experienced an extraordinary communion with God, the extent of which was known only to her superiors. Her supernatural gifts included revelations, visions, hidden stigmata, bilocation, prophecy, and the reading of souls.
In 1934, at the urging of her spiritual director and, later, of Our Lord Himself, Faustina began keeping a diary of her divine revelations and mystical experiences. The result is the 600-page spiritual classic, Divine Mercy in My Soul, which continues to astound scholars to this day with its depth of spiritual and theological insights. She recorded this diary over the span of four years, ending it shortly before her death from tuberculosis in 1938.
Divine Mercy: The Message
“Encourage souls to place great trust in My fathomless mercy. Let the weak, sinful soul have no fear to approach Me, for even if it had more sins than there are grains of sand in the world, all will be drowned in the immeasurable depths of My mercy” (Diary, 1059).
Jesus’ message of mercy to St. Faustina was not a new revelation, but a reminder of those timeless truths of our faith about God’s merciful love for all mankind and His desire for us to turn to Him with trust. What was new were the forms of devotion to that mercy that Jesus requested, and the powerful promises attached to them.
There are generally considered to be four basic elements of the Divine Mercy devotion: the Image, the Feast, the Chaplet, and the Hour of Mercy.
There are generally considered to be four basic elements of the Divine Mercy devotion: the Image, the Feast, the Chaplet, and the Hour of Mercy.
