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Theme: Jesus told Sister Faustina that he is “Love and Mercy.” 1 At the core of Faustina’s spirituality was her awareness of Christ’s invitation to dwell in his merciful love.
In return, she was to love him with all her strength and to demonstrate love and mercy to all God’s people.
Opening Prayer:
Dear Lord, penetrate my heart, mind, and soul with an abiding awareness of your unconditional, merciful love for me. Help me to love you in return, in every circumstance of my life, knowing that my only true joy will be found in loving you and in loving every person because of you.About Faustina
In 1921, at age sixteen, Helena Kowalska was convinced that God wanted her to lead a “more perfect life,”2 but she wasn’t sure how to do so. In the meantime, she decided to follow in her two older sisters’ footsteps and leave home to get a job as a maid. After almost a year living and working in the home of Mrs. Helen Goryszewska, who lived near the large city of Lodz, Helena finally knew what God wanted of her: to enter religious life as a nun. When she mentioned this to her parents, they refused to grant their permission. Out of her great love for God and for them, Helena did not press the issue. Instead, she obtained another job as a live-in maid, this time in the city of Lodz itself.
When autumn 1922 arrived, seventeen-year-old Helena once again asked her parents’ permission to enter a convent. And again, they refused. Discouraged, the slender and lovely Helena decided to give up her dream. For almost a year, she worked as a maid for three women. By 1923 she decided that since she was not allowed to enter religious life, she would need a better-paying job that would enable her to buy fashionable clothes and attend dances with her sisters. Ignoring God’s gentle, loving promptings in her soul to enter religious life, Helena obtained a job as maid and babysitter for the Sadowska family in Lodz.
One night at a dance, despite the lively music and the loud mix of voices, Helena suddenly saw Jesus. Stripped of his clothes, he stood next to her, his flesh covered with wounds. Though his eyes spoke to her of love, they also revealed his agonizing pain. When he then asked her why she kept delaying her entrance into a convent, the tone of his voice and the look on his divine face told her how much her delay grieved him. Not knowing how to reply, Helena left the dance by herself and headed to a nearby cathedral, where she begged God to tell her exactly what to do. Jesus advised her to go to Warsaw and enter a convent.
Helena returned home, told her sister what had happened, and asked her to relate her decision to their parents, Stanislaus and Marianna. Although knowing how much her parents would grieve over losing her tore at Helena’s heart, she could wait no longer for their permission to enter religious life. She would have to trust Jesus, her merciful Lord and Master, to comfort and console her beloved parents. God wanted her to act—now.
With nothing except the dress she wore and a small bag of essentials, eighteen-year-old Helena set off for Warsaw to find a convent that would accept her. Upon her arrival in that city, not knowing anyone, she asked Mary, the mother of God, what she should do. Mary told her to go to a nearby village, where she would find a safe place to spend the night. Helena did so, and the next morning she traveled back to Warsaw, found a Catholic church, and entered. During Mass she asked God what she should do next. He told her to talk to the priest. After Mass she explained her situation to the priest, and he told her to go to the Warsaw home of a woman named Mrs. Aldona Lipszyc, who needed a housemaid. The woman hired her, and during her free time, Helena searched for a convent. She trusted that in his great love and mercy, Jesus would help her find the convent he had intended for her.
Pause: Recall a time in your life when God, in his merciful love for you, seemed to be leading you in a specific direction. How did you respond?
Faustina’s Words
This evening, when I heard the hymn, “Good night, Holy Head of my Jesus,” on the radio, my spirit was suddenly swept away to God’s mysterious bosom, and I knew in what the greatness of a soul consists and what matters to God: love, love, and once again, love. And I understood how all that exists is saturated with God, and such a love of God inundated my soul that I am at a loss to describe it. Happy the soul that knows how to love unreservedly, for in this lies its greatness.3
Eternal Love, Depth of Mercy, O Triune Holiness, yet One God, whose bosom is full of love for all, as a good Father You scorn no one. O Love of God, Living Fountain, pour Yourself out upon us, Your unworthy creatures. May our misery not hold back the torrents of Your love, for indeed, there is no limit to Your mercy.4
Reflection
How can we become more aware of dwelling in God’s merciful love? Since “God is love” (1 John 4:8), and God is infinite mercy, we can count on the fact that we already dwell in that merciful love, because he is everywhere present, within and around each of us. As the merciful, loving parent that he is, God loves each of us unconditionally. All we have to do is “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (James 4:8). Each of us can “draw near” to God in countless ways and thus experience his unfathomable, merciful love enfolding us. Drawing near to God and getting to know him also help us to grow in our love for him.
Prayer is one of the foundational ways of getting to know, love, and experience God, but not just by our speaking to him. Getting to know God is like getting to know a fellow human being: we have to do a lot of listening to the other person in order to learn more about him or her. Faustina listened to God as he led her to religious life. Along each step of the way, through prayer, she relied on him to show her what to do.
Most of us will never experience the visions that Sr. Faustina had of Jesus, but we can learn to listen to God by mulling over a particular Scripture and allowing the Holy Spirit to help its truth sink deep into our souls. One of the fruits of the Holy Spirit is love (Galatians 5:22-23), and when we meditate on God’s word in Scripture, we can count on the Holy Spirit to touch our hearts and convince our minds of his truth, which is love (1 John 4:8).
We can also get to know, love, and experience the God of love and mercy by keeping his commandments. As Faustina grew in her awareness of God’s unconditional, merciful love for her, her desire to love and please him increased. When she realized that he still desired her to enter religious life, she persevered until she was accepted into a convent.
Do you sometimes think of God as a harsh judge, waiting to punish you? That type of negative thinking can cause you to fear him. It can also prevent you from growing in your awareness of his unconditional, merciful love for you.
Find a quiet spot where you can be alone with God. Sit or lie down, whichever is practical in your situation, and close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths, and then ask the Holy Spirit to help you recall recent times when God acted on your behalf to make difficult situations work out for your good, as well as for the good of those you love. You could repeat this spiritual exercise each evening before you sleep and thereby grow daily in your awareness of God’s abiding, merciful love.
On New Year’s Day 1937, Sr. Faustina made a resolution: “to see the image of God in every sister; all love of neighbor must flow from this motive.”5 Tomorrow during all your waking hours, practice visualizing God in each individual you encounter. Before going to sleep, examine your conscience to see if this practice helped you see Jesus in every person with whom you came in contact. Did your love for them, as well as for God, increase as a result?
Read the “God’s Word” section on p. 34 and meditate on the phrase “God is love.” Since God is omnipresent and since he is love itself, visualize yourself nestled against his loving heart. Do this in times of stress, anxiety, depression, fatigue, or in any difficult situation. Allow yourself to totally relax in God’s loving embrace, and let him fill you with his calming presence, which is merciful love.
God asks us to love our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:31). This implies that we must love ourselves first. Do you truly love yourself as God desires? Do you take care of your body, soul, and mind to the best of your ability? When the responsibilities of daily life become too demanding, it might be tempting to deprive yourself of adequate rest, nutrition, exercise, and even prayer. What if each day, in addition to giving your body adequate rest, exercise, and nutrition, you also rest, exercise, and feed your soul? To give “rest” to your soul, you could spiritually place yourself in the tender heart of the Lord, as Sr. Faustina recommended. To “exercise” your soul, you could pray a silent “Jesus, I love you” or a Hail Mary every hour. And to “feed” your soul, you could read and meditate on Scripture.
Jesus calls us to have mercy on and love even our enemies (Matthew 5:44). Do you have any “enemies” to whom you hesitate to show love and mercy because they’ve treated you unfairly or unkindly? If so, remember that mercy is a gift. It is not something anyone deserves. If God shows us merciful love, which we’ve certainly done nothing to deserve, doesn’t he expect us to treat even our enemies in the same way? When it seems almost impossible to love and show mercy to your “enemies,” ask Jesus to give you his merciful love for them and to love them through you. He will do it!
God’s Word
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. (1 John 4:7-8)
Closing Prayer: Dear Lord, fill me with your everlasting merciful love. Fill me to overflowing, so that your love and mercy spill out to everyone in my life. Always help me to love you with all the force of my soul and to know in my heart that you love me even more in return.
An excerpt from Praying with Faustina.
1. Diary of Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul (Stockbridge, MA: Marians of the Immaculate Conception, 1987), 1074.
2. Diary, 7.
3. Diary, 997.
4. Diary, 1307.
5. Diary, 861.