Clued-in Catholics know the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. They are, however, unlikely to know the person who made this devotion known to the world and who was instrumental in getting the work of divine mercy known in the world today. Today, the Church gives us the woman who made the Lord’s mercy known to men and women of today.
Sr Faustina
Kowalska wrote in her Diary: “I feel tremendous pain when I see the
sufferings of my neighbours. All my neighbours’ sufferings reverberate in my
own heart; I carry their anguish in my heart in such a way that it even
physically destroys me. I would like all their sorrows to fall upon me, in
order to relieve my neighbour” (Diary, p. 365). This is the degree of
compassion to which love leads, when it takes the love of God as its
measure!
It is this love which must inspire humanity today, if it is to face
the crisis of the meaning of life, the challenges of the most diverse needs
and, especially, the duty to defend the dignity of every human person. Thus the
message of divine mercy is also implicitly a message about the value of every
human being. Each person is precious in God’s eyes; Christ gave his life for
each one; to everyone the Father gives his Spirit and offers intimacy. (Pope John Paul II, Canonization homily, April 30, 2000).