Meatless Friday: Divine Mercy

This week at church, we had a "Mission".  The visiting priest is Polish, and he knew Pope John Paul II.  Pope JPII canonized St. Maria Faustina Kowalska, who was also Polish.  St. Faustina was one of 10 children, and only had a 3rd grade education.  When she was 20, she entered the Congregation of the Sisters of our Lady of  Mercy; sisters who dedicate their lives to working with troubled young women.

Since she wasn't educated, she was assigned to household tasks.  She had visits from Jesus and Mary, and visited Purgatory.  Her spiritual director encouraged her to write a diary, which was difficult for her due to her limited education.  In 1958, Pope John XXIII condemned the Divine Mercy, reasoning that the diary was misinterpreted because of misspellings and punctuation mistakes.  Pope John Paul II, when he was the archbishop of Cracow, opened up the investigation into Sister Faustina's life and again allowed devotion to the Divine Mercy.  She became a saint on April 30, 2000.

Jesus appeared to her and requested that she have the following picture painted with the words "Jesus I Trust In You":

The 2 rays:  The red denotes the blood and the white denotes the water that poured out of Jesus when his sides were pierced.  "The white ray stands for the Water which makes souls righteous.  The red ray stands for the Blood which is the life of souls. ....These rays shield souls from the wrath of My Father."  (Diary 299)

So, why do we use pictures?  Father Simon said it perfectly:  We're human.  We have to have something visible.  It's a reminder.    We don't pray to the picture, we use the picture to focus on our prayers.

The mission of Saint Faustina consists in:

• reminding the world of the truth of our faith revealed in Holy Scripture about the merciful love of God towards every human being, even the greatest sinner;
• conveying new forms of devotion to Divine Mercy;
• initiating a great movement of devotes and apostles of Divine Mercy who would lead people toward the renoval of Christian life in the spirit of this devotion; in other words, in the evangelical spirit of a childlike confidence in God and an active love of neighbor 

Devotion to the Divine Mercy:
Using a Rosary, the following prayers are said:
1 Our Father
1 Hail Mary
1 Apostle's Creed
"Eternal Father, I offer You the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your dearly Beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world."
The following is said 10 times:
"For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world."
(The "Eternal Father" and the above prayer are then repeated 5 times.)
The following is then said 3 times: 
"Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us and on the whole world."

I had heard of the Divine Mercy, but wasn't real sure what it was about.  This week was wonderful.  It happened at a time when I needed it.  And, it's a wonderful way to start the day.