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After St. Faustina recorded her numerous encounters with Jesus in her Diary, there stood out four primary pillars of the Divine Mercy devotion.
These pillars are often separated, but should be joined together to make a complete whole.
1Divine Mercy Image
Jesus revealed the image of Divine Mercy to St. Faustina in a vision that occurred in her cell in the convent of Płock on February 22, 1931.
“In the evening, when I was in my cell, I saw the Lord Jesus clothed in a white garment,” she writes in her Diary. “One hand was raised in the gesture of blessing, the other was touching the garment at the chest. From beneath the garment, slightly drawn aside at the chest, there were emanating two large rays, one red and the other pale. (…) After a while Jesus said to me, ‘Paint an image according to the pattern you see, with the signature: Jesus, I trust in You.'”
Diary, 47
During St. Faustina’s lifetime her spiritual director, Fr. Michael Sopocko, commissioned an artist to paint an image of Jesus based on St. Faustina’s description.
2Divine Mercy Sunday
Jesus spoke to St. Faustina about his desire to establish this feast in 1931: “I desire that there be a Feast of Mercy. I want this image, which you will paint with a brush, to be solemnly blessed on the first Sunday after Easter; that Sunday is to be the Feast of Mercy” (Diary, 49)”, which is “the greatest attribute of God” (Diary, 301).
In his homily during the canonization of St. Faustina on April 30, 2000, Pope John Paul II declared that, henceforth, the second Sunday of Easter would be called Divine Mercy Sunday throughout the entire Church.
3Divine Mercy Chaplet
One of the devotions that Jesus revealed to St. Faustina was the Divine Mercy Chaplet. He said to her, “At the hour of their death, I defend as My own glory every soul that will say this chaplet; or when others say it for a dying person, the indulgence is the same … When this chaplet is said by the bedside of a dying person, God’s anger is placated, unfathomable mercy envelops the soul, and the very depths of My tender mercy are moved for the sake of the sorrowful Passion of My son.”
He also said to her, “It pleases Me to grant everything they ask of Me by saying the chaplet … if what you ask for is compatible with My will.”
4Hour of Mercy
In St. Faustina’s visions, Jesus requested that we reflect on his suffering and death at the 3:00 hour, and call upon his mercy. He asks us to pray for his mercy upon others, with the Stations of the Cross when possible, adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, or just a brief stop into a church during the “hour of great mercy.”
“At three o’clock, implore My mercy, especially for sinners; and, if only for a brief moment, immerse yourself in My Passion, particularly in My abandonment at the moment of agony. This is the hour of great mercy. In this hour, I will refuse nothing to the soul that makes a request of Me in virtue of My Passion.”
Diary, 1320
And today we celebrate...