Today is Oct. 5, the optional memorial of St. Faustina Kowalska.
Jesus says in today’s Gospel: “All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.”
To be very honest with you, I didn’t have much of an appreciation for St. Faustina until I visited Poland. It was only in Krakow, getting to see the convent where she lived and praying at her tomb, that I was moved by her special insight into Divine Mercy. That insight was a special grace given by Jesus through St. Faustina to the entire Church (not just Poland!).
In one of my favorite passages from St. Faustina’s diary, Jesus reveals to St. Faustina: “(Let) the greatest sinners place their trust in My mercy. They have the right before others to trust in the abyss of My mercy. My daughter, write about My mercy towards tormented souls. Souls that make an appeal to My mercy delight Me. To such souls I grant even more graces than they ask.” The part that I had always been missing is that embracing Divine Mercy requires trust!
It was trust in God that I needed, trust that I needed to pray for, trust that I needed to understand. Thankfully, St. Faustina’s sisters helped me to realize this, and it’s been an insight in the spiritual life that I’ve clung to since.
We have to trust that God will sow the right seeds. We have to trust that God will reap the harvest. We have to trust that God will transform our sins and failings. Today, let’s pray with St. Faustina, “Jesus, I trust in you!”
Prayer invoking the intercession of St. Faustina:
O God, who in a wondrous manner revealed the inexhaustible riches of your mercy to Saint Maria Faustina, grant, we beseech you, that by looking with trust upon the pierced side of your Son we may be strengthened to show mercy one to another and, at length, sing forever of your mercy in heaven. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever. Amen.
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