My Role in Divine Mercy

In the Gospel for Divine Mercy Sunday (John 20: 19-31), Jesus tells the apostles gathered in the upper room: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  What did the Father send Jesus to do?  To take away the sins of the world.  To reconcile humanity to God and with one another.

But Jesus does not only commission them to carry on his work. He empowers them to do so.  He breathes on them and says: “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” 

How are sins retained?  If God’s love and mercy are infinite, how is it that some sins are not forgiven?

In his 1980 encyclical “Rich in Mercy,” Pope St. John Paul II wrote: “Mercy, as a perfection of the infinite God, is also infinite. Also infinite therefore and inexhaustible is the Father’s readiness to receive the prodigal children who return to His home. Infinite are the readiness and power of forgiveness which flow continually from the marvelous value of the sacrifice of the Son.  No human sin can prevail over this power or even limit it (#13).”

There is no limit that any human being can place on God’s mercy.  Except for one.  It’s the limit that arises from human freedom and divine love.  God cannot force his merciful love upon anyone.  He cannot force anyone to love him, for this would not be love but violence.  Thus, John Paul continues: “On the part of man, only a lack of good will can limit it, a lack of readiness to be converted and to repent, in other words persistence in obstinacy, opposing grace and truth, especially in the face of the witness of the cross and resurrection of Christ.”

Reconciliation is a two-way street.  God is always ready to forgive, but his mercy must be received and to receive it one must first recognize the need for mercy, ask for it, and then receive it. God cannot force his love and mercy upon anyone who does not want it.

The Church forgives sins through the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  But the Holy Spirit, given to the entire Church, is at work in the lives of each baptized Christian.  We all play an essential role in helping people receive mercy, in softening hard hearts. How?

First, we are to be holy, merciful, and loving.  As children of God, we are to be holy as God, who is Love and Mercy itself, is holy.

On one occasion when Jesus met St. Faustina, he revealed to her the greatest obstacles to holiness.  He said: #1488: “My child, know that the greatest obstacles to holiness are discouragement and an exaggerated anxiety. These will deprive you of the ability to practice virtue.  All temptations united together ought not disturb your interior peace, not even momentarily (Diary #1488).”

How do discouragement and anxiety prevent us from being virtuous?  When we become discouraged—with ourselves, others, or the world—we give up.  We think things will never get better and so we stop trying to be better.  Change in the world begins with each one of us and discouragement only encourages us to continue moving away from God.  And anxiety leads us to focus on ourselves, our own worries and problems, rather than keeping our focus on God.

The antidote to discouragement and anxiety?  TRUST.  This is the great message that Jesus wanted us to know when he revealed that the greatest divine attribute is mercy.

When we place all our trust in Jesus, in his love and mercy, then we find an inner peace which flows through us into the world.  Jesus told St. Faustina: “When a soul approaches Me with trust, I fill it with such an abundance of graces that it cannot contain them within itself, but radiates them to other souls (Diary #1074).”

We grow in holiness as we grow in union with Jesus, a union that is especially fostered in the Holy Eucharist.  One with Jesus, we see other people as he sees them and we respond as he would respond.  This is why St. Faustina, in words that echo St. Paul (Galatians 2: 20), made the following prayer:  “Most sweet Jesus, set on fire my love for You and transform me into Yourself.  Divinize me that my deeds may be pleasing to You. May this be accomplished by the power of the Holy Communion which I receive daily. Oh, how greatly I desire to be wholly transformed into You, O Lord! (Diary #1288).”

In his homily for the canonization of St. Faustina, the first saint of the new millennium, Pope John Paul II said: “Looking at him, being one with His Heart, we are able to look with new eyes at our brothers and sisters, with an attitude of unselfishness and solidarity, of generosity and forgiveness. All this is mercy! 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.”

Without exclusion, Jesus, the Son of God, suffered and died for every human person.  He told St. Faustina: “My daughter, write that the greater the misery of a soul, the greater its right to My mercy; urge all souls to trust in the unfathomable abyss of My mercy, because I want to save them all. On the cross, the fountain of My mercy was opened wide by the lance for all souls—no one have I excluded! (Diary #1182).”

When we grow in union with Jesus, we share more and more the desires and concerns of his Merciful and Sacred Heart.  Moved as his Heart is moved by sinful and suffering humanity, we pray and work for the conversion of sinners.  This is the work of reconciliation that the Holy Spirit empowers all the baptized to do. 

Praying for the conversion of sinners gives great joy to the Heart of Jesus.  He said: “Pray for souls that they be not afraid to approach the tribunal of My Mercy. Do not grow weary of praying for sinners (Diary #975).” And, “You always console Me when you pray for sinners. The prayer most pleasing to Me is prayer for the conversion of sinners.  Know, My daughter, that this prayer is always heard and answered (Diary #1397).”

This is so important to Jesus that he sent his own Mother with the same message.  At both Lourdes and Fatima she came asking us to pray and offer sacrifices for the conversion of sinners.

Do you believe that your prayers and sacrifices make a difference?  So often we are like St. Thomas who says he won’t believe unless he sees.  We don’t believe that our prayers and sacrifices, our very lives, make much difference unless we SEE results.  We give up praying because we do not SEE change in others and the world, or even in ourselves.

Jesus told St. Thomas: “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”  Celebrating Divine Mercy as we do, we declare: “Yes, Lord, I believe. I believe my life, with its prayers, works, joys, and sufferings, offered daily to you for the salvation of souls does make a difference.  Jesus, I trust in you!  Jesus, I trust in your Holy Spirit at work in and through me, bringing your mercy into the world.”    

What?! Me Worry?

In the summer of 1969, I and a Jesuit priest and five of my high school classmates embarked on a great adventure.  Every summer Fr. John Eagan, S.J. led a group of six Marquette High Juniors-about-to-become-Seniors on a two-week camping trip around the shores of Lake Superior. 

After a restless night of anticipation, we headed North. Fr. Eagan drove the station wagon. Two students sat next to him in the front and three in the back seat.  One got to lay down in the back of the wagon behind all the equipment.  We came to think of him as the lucky one and we took turns in that spot.  For as soon as we hit the highway, Fr. Eagan pulled out a rosary and invited us to pray.  We rolled our eyes, thinking this wasn’t  looking like it was going to be the fun trip we thought it would be. 

Two weeks later, when it was my turn to have the choice spot in the back where you didn’t have to pray the rosary, I declined and offered to sit up front.  Somehow I had come to enjoy praying the rosary every day as we drove.

I returned from the trip feeling like a new person.  The rosary, the beauty of God’s creation, the sense of community, Mass along the shores of Lake Superior at sunset—all of these worked together to get me past a difficult year.

I’d always done well in school and much of my self-worth was tied to my grades.  But in Junior Year I took Trigonometry and Chemistry and my grades went down.  With my grades went my self-image which also took a beating as I argued with my parents over curfew and the use of the car.  And why is it that just before Homecoming a big zit appears on an adolescent boy’s forehead turning him into a cyclops? 

That summer camping trip helped me turn a corner.  I began Senior Year feeling a lot better about myself.  A seed had been planted.  I thought that perhaps I would enjoy doing for others what Fr. John Eagan had done for me.  Maybe I should become a Jesuit priest like him.

But at seventeen, with my whole life ahead of me, I thought: “There’s plenty of time for that.  I want to see the world first.”  So I went to Dominican College in Racine, Wisconsin. I know: “See the world from Racine!?”  OK.  I wanted to experience more of life before going into the Jesuits. 

Before going off to college, I and a good friend from the previous summer’s camping trip decided, for old time’s sake, to do it again.  We took off, knowing that we would cross paths with Fr. Eagan and a group of six guys from the class behind us.  We camped near them and around the campfire one night we made fun of one of those Juniors.  Bill was an athletic kid, a cross-country runner, but during the day when we came to streams and had to cross by walking on logs, Bill got down and crawled across. 

The trip ended and I went off to college.  In September Fr. Eagan called and asked me to pray for Bill. He’d been diagnosed with a brain tumor.  In November I went to his funeral.  Seeing him laid out in the coffin turned the heat up on my vocation discernment. I decided not to delay doing what deep in my heart I felt called to do.  I visited the Jesuit novitiate, applied, was accepted, and entered the Jesuits after one year of college at the age of nineteen. 

The thought of our mortality—that we do not have forever—gives perspective to life.  Every Ash Wednesday we are reminded that we are dust, that our life on earth is not forever.  We begin Lent asking whether we are on the right track. 

A lot changed for me during those camping trips and what followed.  But one thing hasn’t changed—worry.  On our way back from that first camping trip we gave out awards for the best swimmer, diver, cook, etc.  The award I received was “Worry Wart of 1969.”  Throughout the trip I planned for the worst and asked questions: “What if it’s raining, how can we set up camp and cook? What if it’s dark?  What if we run out of repellent or lotion? What if, what if…?

When I told Fr. Eagan that I was going to apply to the Jesuits he challenged me about the worry.  He said that if I became a Jesuit my path, my future would be a great unknown.  I would have to let go of worry and be flexible.  I couldn’t prepare for every eventuality. 

That has certainly been true.  I entered the Society of Jesus to teach in an urban, Jesuit, college-prep school like the one I’d gone to.  I’ve never done that.  And if I’d known then about what I would face in my forty-five years as a Jesuit, I would have been too afraid to apply.  But I’m glad I did.  I would not have grown or become the person I am today without all those things I would have worried about.

Worry saps our energy and leads to stress that takes a toll on our physical, emotional, and spiritual health.  Worry borrows tomorrow’s possible problems and crams them into today.  As Jesus said, “Sufficient for a day is its own evil” (Matt. 6: 34).

Worry fosters a negative attitude.  We see the world through dark glasses as we prepare for the worst.  Such preparation can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Worry was the “original temptation.”  Prior to the Original Sin, our ancestral parents worried about whether they could really trust God.  Maybe God wasn’t telling them the whole story.  Maybe God wouldn’t be there for them.  Wouldn’t it be better to get control?  There is a saying: “If you worry, why pray? And if you pray, why worry?”  When we worry we try to be in control, to be gods.  So what’s the point of praying if you are trying to be God?  When we pray we put our trust in God and not in ourselves, so there’s no point in worrying and trying to be in control of everything.

Since worry is a temptation, it comes from the devil who wants to get us anxious.  The devil disturbs our peace so that we take our focus off God and put it on ourselves.  When we worry we listen to the devil and not to God.

You might ask: “So Father, why do you still worry?” 

I think worry is inevitable, just as temptation in general is.  Temptations challenge us to exercise.  Virtues are “spiritual muscles” that require nourishment (prayer and the sacraments) and exercise (fighting temptation).  When worry comes my way I know I have a choice.  I can obsess or I can exercise by practicing its opposite—trust or faith.  This is where I find certain slogans from Twelve Step Recover programs helpful: “Let go and let God;” “One day at a time;” “This too shall pass.”  I also use the prayer that Jesus told St. Faustina to put on the image of Divine Mercy.  I take a deep breath and pray “Jesus,” holding this “name above every name” (Phil. 2: 9) in my heart and in my lungs as long as I can.  Then I breathe out my worries with “I trust in you.” 

Ultimately trust involves believing in the words of Isaiah 49: 15: “Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you.”  God loves each one of us with a deep maternal love.

St. Teresa of Kolkata once said:  “People say that God will never give you more than you can handle.”  Then she added: “I just wish God didn’t trust me so much.” 

Yes, God trusts us.  God allows temptations so that we can grow.  God wants us to grow in the trust that will bring freedom and peace.  Though loving parents are tempted protect their children from all pain and suffering, the world is not free of those.  Painful challenges are part of life.  Some decisions lead to suffering from which children learn important lessons about consequences.  God, loving us like a parent, does not protect us from challenges and consequences.  God trusts us more than we trust ourselves.  Through painful challenges we grow stronger.  Through suffering we learn empathy.

Easier said (or in this case written) than done.  I pray that I remember the words I’ve written the next time I start worrying….

Reparation for Abortion

Today is the 41^st anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision that legalized abortion in the United States. For Catholics it is a Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children. The March for Life is being held in Washington, DC and the Apostleship of Prayer’s Youth and Young Adult Director, Jesuit scholastic Santiago Rodriguez, has gone to represent us there. 

Last year Pope Benedict XVI tweeted a message of support to the March, saying that he would “join all those marching for life from afar, and pray that political leaders will protect the unborn and promote a culture of life.”  This year Pope Francis tweeted: “I join the March for Life in Washington with my prayers. May God help us respect all life, especially the most vulnerable.”

There are several options for the prayers and readings at Mass today and one of them involves wearing the violet vestments that are seen during the penitential seasons of Advent and Lent. This is also a day of penance and reparation for sins against life. 

Reparation is what Jesus came to do. It means repairing the damage that sin has caused, balancing the evil that has been done with prayer, sacrifice, and works of charity. Jesus suffered and died on the cross and in that way took away the sins of the world. We can join him in that ongoing work as we offer our sacrifices, inconveniences, and hardships.

St. Faustina, the Polish nun and apostle of Divine Mercy, wrote in her diary about making reparation for the sin of abortion.  The following is section 1276:

“September 16, 1937. I wanted very much to make a Holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament today. But God’s will was otherwise. At eight o’clock I was seized with such violent pains that I had to go to bed at once. I was convulsed with pain for three hours; that is, until eleven o’clock at night. No medicine had any effect on me, and whatever I swallowed I threw up. At times, the pains caused me to lose consciousness. Jesus had me realize that in this way I took part in His Agony in the Garden, and that He Himself allowed these sufferings in order to offer reparation to God for the souls murdered in the wombs of wicked mothers. I have gone through these sufferings three times now. They always start at eight o’clock in the evening and last until eleven. No medicine can lessen these sufferings. When eleven o’clock comes, they cease by themselves, and I fall asleep at that moment. The following day, I feel very weak. 

“This happened to me for the first time when I was at the sanatorium. The doctors couldn’t get to the bottom of it, and no injection or medicine helped me at all or did I myself have any idea of what the sufferings were about. I told the doctor that never before in my life had I experienced such sufferings, and he declared he did not know what sort of pains they are. But now I understand the nature of these pains, because the Lord himself has made this known to me. Yet when I think that I may perhaps suffer in this way again, I tremble. But I don’t know whether I’ll ever again suffer in this way; I leave that to God. What it pleases God to send, I will accept with submission and love. If only I could save even one soul from murder by means of these sufferings!”

Several weeks ago, on December 28, the Feast of the Holy Innocents, during my weekly radio show on Radio Maria, I interviewed Peggy Hamill, the director of Pro-Life Wisconsin, who is a regular participant in the monthly All Night Vigil of Prayer and Reparation that is held on First Fridays in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. We talked about the importance of prayer and making reparation for the evil of abortion.  You can hear the interview at the Radio Maria website here.

Holy Communion Prayers

In preparing for my recent Divine Mercy talk, I came upon two prayers of St. Faustina that capture what it means to live a Eucharistic life.  This is the spirituality that we propose in the Apostleship of Prayer--to live the Eucharist in daily life by making an offering of ourselves one day at a time.  What empowers us to do this is our union with Christ and the transformation that follows.  I think these two prayers from St. Faustina's Diary express that mission and desire of ours.

Most sweet Jesus, set on fire my love for You and transform me into Yourself.  Divinize me that my deeds may be pleasing to You.  May this be accomplished by the power of the Holy Communion which I receive daily.  Oh, how greatly I desire to be wholly transformed into You, O Lord! [#1289]

Jesus, make my heart like unto Yours, or rather transform it into Your own Heart that I may sense the needs of other hearts, especially those who are sad and suffering.  May the rays of mercy rest in my heart. [#514]

The Sacred Heart and Divine Mercy

Last Sunday I led Divine Mercy devotions at Marytown, the National Shrine of St. Maximillian Kolbe, who was a contemporary of St. Faustina. I talked about devotion to the Sacred and Merciful Heart of Jesus.

An optional closing prayer for the Divine Mercy chaplet goes like this: "Eternal God, in whom mercy is endless and the treasury of compassion inexhaustible, look kindly upon us and increase Your mercy in us, that in difficult moments we might not despair nor become despondent, but with great confidence submit ourselves to Your holy will, which is Love and Mercy itself." This comes from #950 of St. Faustina's Diary.

What is this "holy will" of God? Our salvation. St. Paul, in his First Letter to Timothy, declares: "God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth" (2: 4). Our Lord's words to St. Faustina echo this: "Write that the greater the misery of a soul, the greater its right to My mercy; [urge] all souls to trust in the unfathomable abyss of My mercy, because I want to save them all. On the cross, the fountain of My mercy was opened wide by the lance for all souls--no one have I excluded!" (#1182).

God wills all to be saved but he cannot impose that will on anyone. God cannot force his love on anyone. Love must be freely given and received. So when humanity rejected God's will and love, God set out to prove his love by sending his Son to live and suffer and die for us. On the cross his Sacred Heart was pierced and blood and water flowed forth. The image of Divine Mercy with its red and white rays coming from the center of the risen Jesus depict this. Jesus told St. Faustina: "The two rays denote Blood and Water. The pale ray stands for the Water which makes souls righteous. The red ray stands for the Blood which is the life of souls.... These two rays issued forth from the very depths of My tender mercy when My agonized Heart was opened by a lance on the Cross" (#299).

The rays come straight from the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This Heart reveals God's greatest attribute--Mercy. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is the Merciful Heart. It is Divine Mercy.

Are devotion to the Sacred Heart and devotion to Divine Mercy in competition? Has Divine Mercy replaced the Sacred Heart? No. Dr. Robert Stackpole, director of the John Paul II Institute of Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, MA, in his book Jesus, Mercy Incarnate, states that the Divine Mercy and the Sacred Heart are "so closely bound up with each other as to be absolutely inseparable." The reason is simple: "Jesus has only one Heart! His Sacred Heart is His Merciful Heart--they are one and the same." These devotions are not in competition. Dr. Stackpole writes: "In short, the differences between these two devotions are best described as differences of emphasis, for both spring from a common source: devotion to the same Heart of Jesus, overflowing with merciful love for us."

Anyone who reads the Diary of St. Faustina will see that Divine Mercy was revealed to her in the context of her devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Devotion to Divine Mercy is a further development of devotion to the Sacred Heart and the Eucharist.

At the Last Supper Jesus told his disciples "I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now" (John 16: 12). Jesus is the fullest revelation of God. There is no new revelation after Jesus. This is the Church's constant teaching. Yet, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to continue to help the Church grow in its understanding of this revelation of God's love in the Person of Jesus. Moreover, after his ascension to the right hand of the Father, Jesus has also appeared from time to time to teach the Church.

He appeared to Saul and asked him: "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" (Acts 9: 4). In this question Jesus made it clear to the future St. Paul that he and his Body, the Church, are one. Later, when he wrote his First Letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul would elaborate on this doctrine of the Body of Christ and the union of Christ with the members of the Church (see chapters 11-13).

In the 1200's Jesus appear to St. Juliana during a time when belief in the Blessed Sacrament was disappearing. He asked for a feast in honor of his Body and Blood, Corpus Christi. In the 1600's, at a time when devotion to God's love in the Eucharist had grown cold and many of the faithful were filled with fear rather than love, Jesus appeared to St. Margaret Mary and asked for a feast in honor of his Sacred Heart. He told her: "My divine Heart is so passionately fond of the human race, and of you in particular, that it cannot keep back the pent-up flames of its burning charity any longer. They must burst out through you and reveal my Heart to the world, so as to enrich mankind with my precious treasures. He complained to her: "There it is, that Heart so deeply in love with men, it spared no means of proof--wearing itself out until it was utterly spent! This meets with scant appreciation from most of them; all I get back is ingratitude--witness their irreverence, their sacrileges, their coldness and contempt for me in this Sacrament of Love." The feast and devotion to the Sacred Heart in no way replaced the feast and devotion to the Holy Eucharist.

Then in the 1930's, during what many have called the most merciless century in human history, Jesus appeared to St. Faustina, revealed his Heart to her in the context of Eucharistic adoration, and called for a feast and devotion to his Divine Mercy. In words that echo those spoken to St. Margaret Mary, he said: "The flames of mercy are burning Me. I desire to pour them out upon human souls. Oh, what pain they cause Me when they do not want to accept them!" (#1074). And he complained: "Oh, how painful it is to Me that souls so seldom unite themselves to Me in Holy Communion. I wait for souls, and they are indifferent toward Me. I love them tenderly and sincerely, and they distrust Me. I want to lavish My graces on them, and they do not want to accept them" (#1447). The feast and devotion to Divine Mercy in no way replaced the feasts and devotion to the Holy Eucharist and the Sacred Heart.

Think for a moment: what is the greatest obstacle to holiness? Our natural response is to think of our temptations and sins. But Jesus told St. Faustina it was something else: "My child, know that the greatest obstacles to holiness are discouragement and an exaggerated anxiety. These will deprive you of the ability to practice virtue. All temptations united together ought not disturb your interior peace, not even momentarily. Sensitiveness and discouragement are the fruits of self-love. You should not become discouraged, but strive to make My love reign in place of your self-love. Have confidence, My child. Do not lose heart in coming for pardon, for I am always ready to forgive you" (#1488).

Dis-cour-agement. The center of that word comes from the Latin word "cor" or "heart." When we become discouraged we lose heart. To have courage we need only turn to the Heart of Jesus. He gives his Heart to us in the Eucharist where he is present Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, including his Heart. This is the new heart that God promised through the prophet Ezekiel (see chapters 11 and 36). God replaces our sin-hardened hearts with the Heart of his Son when we receive him in Holy Communion.

This Heart transforms our hearts so that we can be merciful as Jesus is merciful. We let go of resentments and past hurts. We pray, with merciful hearts, for the conversion of all who have hurt us and for all sinners. We pray that God's will may be done: that every soul may accept the knowledge of the truth of God's love and be saved. This is the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples and us, the Our Father. We pray to forgive as we have been forgiven by Divine Mercy. We pray that God's will--"which is Love and Mercy itself"--may be done on earth as it is done in heaven. Amen.

No Limits to God's Mercy

Today is the feast day of St. Faustina, the Apostle of Divine Mercy. When Jesus appeared to her in the 1930's, he told her that his greatest attribute was mercy. His mercy, like his love, is infinite. The only limit to it is the one we place on it. In other words, God is always ready to forgive and even sends graces to move our hearts to return to him. We limit God's mercy in our own lives and in those of others by our refusal to receive mercy and to give mercy.



The Mass readings today underscore this. The Prophet Jonah is angry that God has forgiven his enemies after he fulfilled God's command to warn them that their sins were leading them to destruction. God shows Jonah that he wants to forgive and not destroy, that he is "concerned" over the more than 120,000 people "who cannot distinguish their right hand from their left." In other words: people who were never taught right from wrong, or who were taught it but really did not understand. They were like those who crucified Jesus and for whom he prayed: "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing."

In the Gospel (Luke 11: 1-4) Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, calling upon God as Jesus himself did: "Father". God is the one Father whose human children made in his own image and likeness must forgive one another as their Father forgives them.


Jesus directed St. Faustina to write a diary that contained her thoughts, prayers, and the words of Jesus to her. In one passage (#723) Jesus said: "The greater the sinner, the greater the right he has to My mercy." "Right"? That's not a word we would think of in this context, but Jesus declares that because he came to forgive sinners, they are the ones who have the most claim on his mercy.

Another passage (#1183) is a prayer that St. Faustina wrote. It sounds very much like the "one day at a time" spirituality of the Morning Offering:

"O Jesus, I want to live in the present moment, to live as if this were the last day of my life. I want to use every moment scrupulously for the greater glory of God, to use every circumstance for the benefit of my soul. I want to look upon everything, from the point of view that nothing happens without the will of God."

In another passage (#1582) St. Faustina sounds just like St. Therese of the Child Jesus who said that she would spend her heaven doing good on earth. St. Faustina felt that she would be so filled with God's love and mercy in heaven that she would be an even better channel for God's overflowing mercy to reach the world. She wrote:

"O my Jesus, I now embrace the whole world and ask You for mercy for it. ... Poor earth, I will not forget you. Although I feel that I will be immediately drowned in God as in an ocean of happiness, that will not be an obstacle to my returning to earth to encourage souls and incite them to trust in God's mercy. Indeed, this immersion in God will give me the possibility of boundless action."

Thus, St. Faustina is a great friend and intercessor. May we all become channels and instruments of God's mercy as well.