Bob Lord - Saint Faustina & Divine Mercy

Published by Bob and Penny Lord atSmashwords

Copyright 2010 Bob and Penny Lord

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Saint Faustina & Divine Mercy

Gods Messenger of Divine Mercy

There is a time for Mercy and a time forJustice. Expelling Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden was an actof Gods Justice. But even then, as the Angel was blocking the wayto the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden,1 and ushering our firstparents out into the cold world, God was showing His Mercy to usthrough His promise of the Messiah, the Redeemer. God has alwayslived up to His Word. Throughout Salvation history, we have beenbeneficiaries of Gods Mercy. And very few times has He let looseHis Justice. Sodom and Gomorrah was Gods Justice. Noah and the Arkwas Gods Justice, but also mingled with Gods Mercy. The miracleof Moses and the Jews crossing the Red Sea was Gods Mercy, coupledwith Gods Justice on the Pharaohs charioteers. When finally weare in the last days, with possibly the end of the world at hand,and we are about to face the Last Judgment, at that time the God ofMercy will give way to the God of Justice.

God has continued to give us the benefit ofHis Mercy down through the centuries. A powerful messenger of GodsMercy, which parallels Saint Sr. Faustina and devotion to DivineMercy, is St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and the promises of the SacredHeart Devotion.2 Through her, God manifested and made known HisMercy through His Sacred Heart in the seventeenth century. We cometo the Twentieth Century, the Dawn of the last century of theSecond Millennium, and we find that God has sent us Prophets andVisionaries once more, to warn His children. There have been manyprophecies, including one by St. Don Bosco, that lend credibilityto the strong belief that the Second Coming will occur at the endof this last decade of the Twentieth Century. The world is behavingwith the same insane euphoria as it did at the time of the fall ofGreece and Rome. Decadence, promiscuity, concupiscence, andapostasy are rampant. If we were ever in need of Gods Mercy, it isnow. And so, Our Lord answers our prayers, before we even know weneed His aid.

Early in the twentieth century, the Lord gaveus a simple servant, Helen Kowalska, born in the small village ofGlogowiec, Poland, on August 25, 1905, the day before the NationalFeast of Our Lady of Czestochowa. Poland is much like Mexico, 95%Catholic, but 98% Czestochowan. They have always had a greatdevotion to Our Lady under that title. She has saved them fromutter destruction, many times in the history of this troubledcountry.

Poland has been dominated throughout thecenturies to a great extent by her next door neighbors, Germany andRussia. From time to time, each would take turns invading andpillaging Poland. The period of time when Helen Kowalska grew up inthe little village of what is today central Poland, was a turbulenttime in the stormy history of the country. Just prior to Helensbirth, Poland had been chopped up by its neighbors. In 1918, whenHelen was only 13, a new Republic was created which gave thecountry just a fraction of its former land, small enough toguarantee, it would never be a threat to either Russia or Germany.But even that only lasted twenty one years, when Nazi Germanyinvaded Poland, and Russia (then part of the Soviet Union) thenfollowed by occupying her until 1989.

We believe this period, this thirty threeyears in the life of Helen Kowalska, later to be known by the wholeworld as Sr. Faustina and now Saint Sr. Faustina, was to give usstrength, courage and trust in Gods Mercy which we would needdesperately in this last century of the Second Millennium. But onan immediate scale, it was to prepare the people of Poland for thehell this dear country would have to endure for the next fifty oneyears following the death of Sr. Faustina. Our Lord knew whatstrength the people would need, and He began giving it to themthrough His apparitions and messages to Sr. Faustina.

Sr. Faustinas early days

As with many families of that time, Helensfather was a stern man, a disciplinarian, who maintained a stronggrip on his family. He was also, however, a very spiritual man whoprayed diligently. In her diary, Sister Faustina writes howimpressed she was with the way her father prayed. But for the mostpart, the children received their religious training from theirmother. Marianne Kowalska was a very loving, pious woman, whoinsisted she give her children a strong foundation of the Faith sothat they, too, would be able to pass this on to their children.Daily prayer, the Rosary, observance of Lenten and Advent fasts andabstinence were all part of Helens upbringing. Although they neverhad money, the parents gave high priority to trying wheneverpossible to save a little to buy books on the Saints. Helen lovedto hear stories of the monks and hermits. She used to share thesestories with the children with whom she played.

Helen felt the strong presence of the LordJesus in her heart, from an early age. She tells us in her diarythat when she was seven years old, she felt a call to the Religiouslife.

From the age of seven, I experienced thedefinite call of God, the grace of a vocation to the religiouslife. It was in the seventh year of my life that, for the firsttime, I heard Gods voice in my soul; that is, an invitation to amore perfect life.

Helens strongest fusion with Jesus cameduring Communion, or in front of the Blessed Sacrament. ReceivingJesus in the Eucharist was a high point of her life.

When I was present at Vespers and the LordJesus was exposed in the Monstrance, it was then that for the firsttime Gods love was imparted to me and filled my little heart.

At another point, she wrote in her diary,

The most solemn moment of my life is themoment when I receive Holy Communion. And for every Holy Communion,I give thanks to the Most Holy Trinity.

If the Angels were capable of envy, theywould envy us for two things: one is the receiving of HolyCommunion, and the other is for suffering.

And yet as a child, Helen was willing tosacrifice this most special gift - going to Mass, so that herSisters could use the one

Sunday outfit available to go to Mass. Atthese times, she received Spiritual Communion. She would hide in acorner, and just pray. She closed herself off from the whole worldand spiritually joined them at Mass. Even her dear mother, whomight call her to perform one task or another, would have to waituntil the Mass in the church was over, because Helen became solost, communicating with the Lord.

Helens formal education was very short. Thiscreated some problem in the translation and use of her diary as asource of information about her life and the Mission of DivineMercy. It was written by a person with less than two yearseducation. Sentences were not properly structured; grammar wasincorrect; meanings were not clear. There would come a time whenthe enemy would cause this lack of education to be a majorstumbling block, the major grounds for having the devotions to theDivine Mercy of God suspended by the Vatican for twenty years.

Does this not reminds us of the story ofGideon in the Old Testament? The Lord made Gideon send home most ofhis soldiers because He wanted all the world, especially Gideon andhis people, to know that He was delivering them from the hands oftheir enemies, and not the power of Gideon or the soldiers.3 Thesame occurred with Faustina. The Lord was probably saying to us,Dont get the idea that anyone but Me gave this devotion toFaustina, and that anyone but Me will have it accepted in theChurch.