Catholic Fire

The Feast Day This coming Sunday, March 29, is Divine Mercy Sunday . This feast was instituted by Pope John Paul II in the year 2000, in response to a direct request by the Lord to a Polish nun, St. Maria Faustina Kowalska, whom Pope John Paul II canonized that year . The Image On February 22, 1931, Jesus first appeared to St. Faustina at the Congregation of Our Lady of Mercy convent in Plock, Poland. This is how she describes that vision in her diary: “In the evening, when I was in my cell, I saw the Lord in a white garment. He had one hand raised in blessing and the other was touching his garment at the chest. From the fold in His garment…..there were two large rays: one red and the other pale.” Jesus later told her: “Paint an image according to the pattern you see with the signature Jesus, I trust in You. I desire this image be venerated first in your chapel and then throughout the world.” The Meaning of the Image There is a connection between that image and the liturgy of the sec...

Friday of the Twenty-Sixth Week of Ordinary Time; St. Faustina Kowalska, virgin (RM) Short Biography of St. Faustina, Apostle of Divine Mercy Today's Mass Readings On This Day in Catholic History: 869 The Fourth Constantinople Council opened. Birthdays 1520 Alessandro Cardinal Farnese , Italian cardinal and diplomat, grandson of Pope Paul III (1468–1549) (d. 2 March 1589). 1879 - Francis Peyton Rous , American pathologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1970) 1922 - Bil Keane , American cartoonist, ( Family Circus ) 1937 - Barry Switzer , American football coach 1951 - Karen Allen , American actress (Raiders of the Lost Ark)

"If souls would put themselves completely in my care, I myself would undertake the task of sanctifying them, and I would lavish even greater graces on them. There are souls who thwart My efforts, but I have not given up on them; as often as they turn to Me, I hurry to their aid, sheilding them with My mercy, and I give them the first place in My compassionate Heart. ~ God speaking to St. M. Faustina Kowalska, The Divine Mercy in My Soul Diary , 1682 (59) May 1, 1938.

Today is Divine Mercy Sunday . This feast was instituted by Pope John Paul II in the year 2000, in response to a direct request by the Lord to a Polish nun, St. Faustina Kowalska, whom Pope John Paul II canonized that year . In 1931, Jesus first appeared to St. Faustina in her convent in Krakow and asked her to become his “secretary,” and write down what He revealed to her for the good of the Church and the world. What He revealed to her was the message of His divine, merciful love. She wrote down what the Lord said and it filled in her diary, which turned out to be 689 pages in the English translation. Here is one of the messages that the Lord gave to St. Faustina about the feast we celebrate today: "My daughter, tell the whole world about My inconceivable mercy. I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and shelter for all souls, and especially for poor sinners. On that day the very depths of My tender mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who ap...

National Catholic Register has an excellent article on the Divine Mercy devotion. Here is an excerpt from that article: It was in Poland during the 1930s that Jesus himself lit the fire of Divine Mercy devotions. He revealed his desire for this special ardor to a humble nun, Sister Faustina Kowalska. And he specifically asked that a feast in its honor be celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter. The flames spread bit by bit until the Jubilee Year 2000, when they burst into a conflagration. This came when Pope John Paul II declared — on April 30, at the canonization Mass for St. Faustina Kowalska — that “this Second Sunday of Easter … from now on throughout the Church, will be called Divine Mercy Sunday.” Then, on Aug. 17, 2002, at the new Divine Mercy Shrine in Lagiewniki, Poland, the 263rd successor to St. Peter solemnly entrusted the world to the Divine Mercy, adding: “I do so with the burning desire that the message of God’s merciful love, proclaimed here through St. Faustina, m...

"Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful."~ Luke 6:36 The flames of mercy are burning Me -- clamoring to be spent; I want to keep pouring them out upon souls; souls just don't want to believe in My goodness. ~ Jesus to St. Faustina