St. Faustina - May Become a Doctor of the Church

The hatred of satan for Divine Mercy

From the Diary of St. Faustina 

1405   -   November 30, 1937. When I was going upstairs this evening, a strange dislike for everything having to do with God suddenly came over me. At that, I heard Satan who said to me, "Think no more about this work. God is not as merciful as you say He is. Do not pray for sinners, because they will be damned all the same, and by this work of mercy you expose your own self to damnation. Talk no more about this mercy of God with your confessor and especially not with Father Sopocko and Father Andrasz." At this point, the voice took the appearance of my Guardian Angel, and at that moment I replied, "I know who you are: the father of lies [cf. Jn. 8:44]." I made the sign of the cross, and the angel vanished with great racket and fury. 



When we think of the power of Divine Mercy for souls, do we ourselves ask in our hearts, what are we doing to save souls, so many who are now in danger.  If we hear of a person who is ill, dying or suffering with addiction problems, or a person in prison on death row, do we pray for them sincerely the Chaplet of Mercy to enable that soul to receive God's Mercy at the hour of death.  We can offer our daily sufferings in union with Christ Crucified for the sake of others, as well as offering our prayers.  Every interior act of self giving is valuable to Jesus and let Him do as He wishes with it.  Our lives are short on this earth.  The sufferings in hell will never end.  Think about that ...do we want anyone to suffer eternal damnation ?  The Saints fought hard for souls, offering their sufferings in union with Jesus Crucified.  We have been given a great grace in the Devotion of Divine Mercy for these times, a grace unparalleled in any other time in history.  

How are we responding to this request from Christ Himself ?  How will we answer to God for the souls lost if we pay no heed to His Pleas to pray the Chaplet of Mercy for souls, to respect the Sunday of Divine Mercy and to spread the Message of this great indulgence to as many souls as possible, to get His Image into as many Churches and homes as possible.  We do not know what lies ahead of us, but Jesus does know, He is preparing us for the most difficult times in our Church which lay ahead.  Perhaps the Image of Jesus will be our only consolation in the times to come, where many Churches may be closed, Priests persecuted or martyred....remember this is happening in some countries now, where Catholics and Christians are under persecution and Churches destroyed and Priests killed....let us pray for Gods Mercy as now the Church is entering into its Calvary..but it will be triumphant as the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.  

St. John Eudes

Soul of Christ - Anima Christi

Feast of Divine Mercy

The Feast of Divine Mercy was celebrated with joy yesterday in Parishes throughout Ireland and the whole world.  We give thanks to God for His great Mercy which is unfathomable.  We pray that next year on the 7th April 2013 we may celebrate it in many other Parishes.  In the meantime let us go forward and continue to promote this devotion properly and go deeper into the meaning of Mercy and the Message of St. Faustina.  This is a devotion which is hated much by the evil one but it is important to remember to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and not on the problems or difficulties.  He will help us to overcome our own weaknesses and sins if we truly rest on His Most Merciful Heart.  

Words from Bl. John Paul II

Bl. Pope John Paul II said in his address which he gave when he visited the tomb of Sister Faustina at the convent of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in Lagiewniki, Poland, back in 1997.

 “There is nothing that man needs more than Divine Mercy. … And it is a message that is clear and understandable for everyone. Anyone can come here, look at this image of the merciful Jesus, his heart radiating grace, and hear in the depths of his own soul what Blessed Faustina heard: ‘Fear nothing; I am with you always.’ And if this person responds with a sincere heart: ‘Jesus, I trust in you,’ he will find comfort in all his anxieties and fears. ...

On the threshold of the third millennium I come to entrust to him once more my Petrine ministry: ‘Jesus, I trust in you!’ “The message of Divine Mercy has always been near and dear to me. It was an inexhaustible source of hope for the Polish people during World War II. This was also my personal experience, which I took with me to the See of St. Peter and which, in a sense, forms the image of this pontificate. I give thanks to divine Providence that I have been enabled to contribute personally to the fulfillment of Christ’s will, through the institution of the feast of Divine Mercy [in Poland]. … I pray unceasingly that God will have ‘mercy on us, and on the whole world.’”

The Saints on Gods Mercy

St. Athanasius (d.373) wrote, "It is the great Mercy of God that He becomes the Father of those to whom He is first the Creator."

St. Ambrose (d.397) stated, "Mercy, also, is a good thing, for it makes men  perfect, in that it imitates the perfect Father. Nothing graces the Christian  soul so much as mercy."

St. John Chrysostom (d.407) explained, "Everything that God does is born  of His Mercy and His clemency."

St. Augustine (d.430) prayed, "I confess, O Lord, that Thou art merciful in  all Thine acts. And this Saint explained that "God's 
Mercy is not lacking to  any of His works" Also he wrote that "Man, created in the image of God,  is not of the same nature as God, and therefore is not His true son, but he  becomes His son through the grace of Divine Mercy." St. Augustine  speaks of mercy "flying" after him as if on wings. This same Saint referred  to the Holy Eucharist as the "Sacrament of Mercy."

St. Benedict (d.547) taught that one should "never despair of God's  mercy."

Pope St. Gregory I (d.604) asked, "Are you a sinner? Then believe in His  [God's] mercy, that you may rise."

St. Bernard (d.1153) taught that "God is not the Father of Judgement, but  only the Father of Mercy, and punishment comes from our own selves."

The Meaning of the Rays from Jesus on Divine Mercy Image

Diary Entry 299:  

"When on one occasion, my confessor told me to ask 

the Lord Jesus the meaning of the two rays in the image.  I answered,

"Very well, I will ask the Lord." 

During prayer I heard these words within me.  "The two rays denote

Blood and Water.  The pale ray stands for the Water which makes souls

righteous.  The red ray stands for the Blood which is the life of souls...  

These two rays issued forth from the very depths of My tender mercy

when My agonized Heart was opened by a lance on the Cross.

These rays shield souls from the wrath of My Father.  Happy is the 

one who will dwell in their shelter, for the just hand of God shall not

lay hold of him.  I desire that the first Sunday after Easter be the Feast

of Mercy.

St. Bernadette on Suffering

"My own concerns no longer concern me. From now on I must belong entirely to God, and God alone. Never to myself. Why have I come [to the convent], if not to love Our Lord with all my heart. O Jesus and Mary, grant that all my consolation in this world may be to love you, serve you and suffer for sinners.

O Jesus, teach me to understand how exclusive is heavenly Love. Continually dying to myself, peacefully supporting trials, I work, I suffer, and I wish to have no other witness but His Heart. He who is not prepared to suffer all for the Beloved and to do His Holy Will in all things is not worthy of the beautiful name of Friend.

From here on earth, Love cannot live without suffering. It is through loving the cross that we discover His Heart, for divine Love never lives without suffering. I want my whole life to be inspired by love. He who loves, does all things easily, or, if he suffers, he suffers bravely. Why is suffering necessary? Because on earth, pure love cannot exist without suffering. O Jesus, Jesus, I no longer feel my cross when I think of yours!"

- Saint Bernadette Soubirous

 October 1873

Diary of St. Faustina...on suffering within her own Community

+ 1634 - When the doctor 241 came, I could not go down to the parlor to see him, like the other sisters, but asked that he come to my cell, because I could not go down due to a certain difficulty. After a while, he came to the cell and, having examined me, said, "I'll tell everything to the Sister Infirmarian." When the Sister Infirmarian came, after the doctor had left, I told her why I hadn't been able to go down to the parlor, but she gave me to know how very displeased she was. And when I asked, "Sister, what did the doctor say about these pains?" she answered that he had said nothing, that it was nothing, that he had said the patient was just sulking. And with that she went off. Then I said to God, "Christ, give me strength and power to suffer; give to my heart a pure love for this sister." After that, she did not look in on me again for a whole week. 


But the sufferings returned with great violence and lasted almost the whole night, and it seemed that it would be the end, then and there. The superiors decided to approach another doctor, 242and he ascertained that my condition was serious and said to me, "It will not be possible to return you to good health. We can remedy your condition partially, but complete recovery is out of question." He prescribed a medicine for the pains, and after I had taken it, the major attacks did not return. "But if you come here, Sister, we will try to patch up your health somehow, if that is still possible." The doctor very much wanted me to go there for a treatment. 243 O my Jesus, how strange are Your decrees! 

St. Alphonsus Ligouri on Doing Gods will

Conformity in all Things.

The essence of perfection is to embrace the will of God in all things, prosperous or adverse. In prosperity, even sinners find it easy to unite themselves to the divine will; but it takes saints to unite themselves to God’s will when things go wrong and are painful to self-love. Our conduct in such instances is the measure of our love of God. St. John of Avila used to say: “One ‘Blessed be God’ in times of adversity, is worth more than a thousand acts of gratitude in times of prosperity[20].”

Furthermore, we must unite ourselves to God’s will not only in things that come to us directly from his hands, such as sickness, desolation, poverty, death of relatives, but likewise in those we suffer from man -- for example, contempt, injustice, loss of reputation, loss of temporal goods and all kinds of persecution. On these occasions we must remember that whilst God does not will the sin, he does will our humiliation, our poverty, or our mortification, as the case may be. It is certain and of faith, that whatever happens, happens by the will of God: “I am the Lord forming the light and creating the darkness, making peace and creating evil[21].” From God come all things, good as well as evil. We call adversities evil; actually they are good and meritorious, when we receive them as coming from God’s hands: “Shall there be evil in a city which the Lord hath not done

[22]?” “Good things and evil, life and death, poverty and riches are from God[23]

.”

It is true, when one offends us unjustly, God does not will his sin, nor does he concur in the sinner’s bad will; but God does, in a general way, concur in the material action by which such a one strikes us, robs us or does us an injury, so that God certainly wills the offense we suffer and it comes to us from his hands. Thus the Lord told David he would be the author of those things he would suffer at the hands of Absalom: “I will raise up evils against thee out of thy own house, and I will take thy wives before thy face and give them to thy neighbor[24].” Hence too God told the Jews that in punishment for their sins, he would send the Assyrians to plunder them and spread destruction among them: “The Assyrian is the rod and staff of my anger . . . I will send him to take away the spoils[25].” “Assyrian wickedness served as God’s scourge for the Hebrews[26]‘‘ is St. Augustine’s comment on this text. And our Lord himself told St. Peter that his sacred passion came not so much from man as from his Father: “The chalice which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it[27]

Diary of St. Faustina...Forgetting one's self and her misery

254  + The moments I lived through when I was taking my perpetual vows are better left unsaid.

I am in Him, and He in me. As the Bishop [Rospond] was putting the ring on my finger, God pervaded my whole being, and since I cannot express that moment, I will be silent about it. My relationship with God, since perpetual vows, has been more intimate than it had ever been before. I sense that I love God and that He loves me. Having once tasted God, my soul could not live without Him. One hour spent at the foot of the altar in the greatest dryness of spirit is dearer to me than a hundred years of worldly pleasures. I prefer to be a lowly drudge in the convent than a queen in the world. 


255  + I will hide from people's eyes whatever good I am able to do so that God himself may be my reward. I will be like a tiny violet hidden in the grass, which does not hurt the foot that treads on it, but diffuses its fragrance and, forgetting itself completely, tries to please the person who has crushed it underfoot. This is very difficult for human nature, but God's grace comes to one's aid.


256  + Thank You, Jesus, for the great favor of making known to me the whole abyss of my misery. I know that I am an abyss of nothingness and that, if Your holy grace did not hold me up, I would return to nothingness in a moment. And so, with every beat of my heart, I thank You, my God, for Your great mercy towards me.