The
Importance of the Message of Divine Mercy for our Times
Mother Adela,
SCTJM
Foundress
For private use
only
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In the Magnificat, the Blessed
Virgin told us, “His mercy will reach from age to age” (Luke 1:50).
Each era, each generation ought to respond to God and His saving
actions by accepting salvation, battling the evils of its times, and
responding to the needs of the historic moment. The men of each
generation are responsible for reading the signs of their times, for
discovering the voice of God, and for responding with obedience to
what He reveals, in order to bring His mercy to that generation.
All saving actions of God will manifest themselves in each
generation and in each moment of history until that definite moment
of the Second Coming of Christ Who will come to judge the living and
the dead, the men and women of all time; He will judge man and his
participation in history.
Since the Resurrection of our Lord,
we have been in the time of mercy, and as each day goes by, we come
closer and closer to Divine Justice. The Apostle Paul tells us in
his First Letter to the Thessalonians, “Concerning times and
seasons, brothers, you have no need for anything to be written to
you. For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will
come like a thief at night” (5:1-2). Because of the great love
God has for us – for He is love (1 Jn 4:8) and rich in mercy (Eph
2:4) and slow to anger (Neh 9:17) – He warns us and gives us time to
prepare. He gives us a time of mercy, a time in which God calls us
to conversion and in which we must also exercise ourselves in mercy
towards others. We see in Sacred Scripture how men in the Last
Judgment will be judged by their works of mercy: “For I was hungry
and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a
stranger and you welcomed me…” (Mt 25:35).
This is the urgency with which the
Lord revealed Himself to Saint Maria Faustina, a Polish religious of
the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy: “My
daughter, tell the entire world of my unfathomable mercy (cf.
Diary 848)…Before I come as a Just Judge, I will come as a King
of Mercy” (Diary, 83).
The devotion to Divine Mercy is a
call of God to men so that they may return to Him and trust in Him.
This is not a new devotion; it was known from the times of Christ.
“Jesus,
son of David, have mercy on me!” (Mt 18:38). We see how the blind
man trusted that the Lord would be able to heal him and, therefore,
called out to Him for mercy. He recognized his own blindness and
trusted in Christ as the only one who could heal him. The message
of mercy is for all men, and it is also a message for our times.
The Holy Father John Paul II stated at St. Faustina’s canonization,
“It is not a new message but can be considered a gift of special
enlightenment that helps us to relive the Gospel of Easter more
intensely, to offer it as a ray of light to the men and women of our
time” (April 30, 2000, no.2).
Definition of the Mercy of God
The mercy of God can be described as
His response as He comes to the aide of His weak children. No
creature deserves the mercy of God, but rather it is a free gift and
a grace that is given to His children because of the greatness of
His love. Sin is the greatest misery of man and of creation. Our
misery is sin, and because man is a sinner, he is considered
miserable. But there is a very important distinction between misery
and the one who is miserable…and that is that God hates the sin but
loves the sinner; He loves the man who is weak and miserable. This
love with which God loves man is defined as mercy. Mercy is not
compassion or forgiveness in the precise sense of the term; those
are rather the effects of mercy. In the Hebrew language, mercy
comes from the word rahamin, which is defined as “a sentiment
that is born of the maternal womb or of the entrails of the Heart of
the Father” (Is 49:15). The mercy of God is one of His attributes
that exists only for His creatures. That is to say, in order to
display mercy, it is necessary that there first be misery. As St.
Francis de Sales explains to us, “Even if God had not created man,
He would still be perfect charity, but in reality He would not be
merciful, for mercy can only be exercised over misery…Our misery is
the throne of God’s mercy” (Spiritual Conferences, conference
ii). And the Curé de Ars would say, “The mercy of God is as a
roaring torrent that pulls hearts along its way.” Thus, even though
no one deserves it, it is available to all.
Divine
Mercy in the Sacred Scriptures
Divine Mercy has been revealed to us
from the very beginning – since Genesis, the first book of the
Bible. Man turned away from God and His will, and the Lord gave him
the opportunity to make up for his fault and to return to Him with
all of his heart. We also see, at the same time, how the devil
tried to deceive man, bringing forth in him fear of God’s
chastisement and wrath.
God created all things in a perfect
harmony and order that was foreign to any evil. Man was created to
love, know, obey and serve God and to enjoy the order He had
instilled in all things. Soon, however, because our first parents
succumbed to the seduction of the serpent, the relationship of love
with God was broken and the order of all creation was lost. And
after having sinned and disobeyed the commandment of God, they
experienced fear. “The Lord God then called to the man and asked
him, ‘Where are you?’ He answered, ‘I heard you in the garden; but I
was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself’” (Gen
3:9-10). We see from this that when man commits sin, the devil
immediately induces terror of God’s punishment so that man will be
afraid of encountering Him; thus, man does not confess his sins and
does not receive in his life the mercy and forgiveness of God that
would cleanse him of the wrong committed. “When a soul praises
my goodness, Satan trembles before it and flees to the very bottom
of hell” (Diary, 378).
The devil makes us see God as a just
and terrible judge that does not forgive our offenses. In reality,
the opposite is true: God is “rich in mercy” towards His creation
(Eph 2:4). The Lord even uses what is evil to bring about a greater
good. “The true and proper significance of mercy in the world
does not consist only in the gazing, even if it is the most
penetrating and the most compassionate, that is directed towards
moral, physical or material evil; mercy is manifested in its truest
aspect when it revalidates, promotes and extracts the good from all
forms of evil that exist in the world and in men. Understood in
this manner, it constitutes the fundamental Messianic message of
Christ and the constitutive force of His mission. This is the way
in which His disciples and followers practiced mercy. Mercy never
ceased being revealed in their hearts and in their actions as
singularly creative proof of that love that does not ‘allow itself
to be overcome by evil,’ but which ‘overcomes evil with good’”
(John Paul II, Dives in Misericordia (DM), 64).
God is not vengeful. Sin makes a
person miserable, and God uses this opportunity to reveal His
infinite love and mercy to man. In other words, because of sin, man
is able to know Divine Mercy. God overcomes evil with good. His
Holiness John Paul II, in His encyclical Dives en Misericordia,
tells us, “In the eschatological fulfillment mercy will be revealed
as love, while in the temporal phase, in human history, which is at
the same time the history of sin and death, love must be revealed
above all as mercy and must also be actualized as mercy” (no.85).
In Sacred Scripture we can see clearly the manifestation of Divine
Mercy in the book of Hosea. God says, “How am I going to leave
you Ephraim, or to turn you in, Israel? My heart is overcome within
me, and my entrails are shaken. I will not give vent to the force
of my anger, I will not destroy Ephraim again, because I am God and
not man, I am the Holy One among you and will not come to you with
anger” (11:8-9).
We see that even though God has
every
reason to be angry with man, He does not have the hardness of heart
of man who, on the contrary, often seeks to vent his anger on his
adversary. We see that He is God, not man, and thus, He will not
allow His anger to be greater than His love.
In the book of Jeremiah, the Lord
also directed Himself to Israel and told them, “Return, rebel
Israel…I will not remain angry with you; for I am merciful…I will
not continue my wrath forever. Only know your guilt: how you
rebelled against the Lord, your God” (Jer 3:12-13). God tells
us that He is kind to His people. He is kind and forgives the sins
of His children who have repented of the evil they have done.
The prophet David understood God’s
merciful love very well; he also knew man and his desire for
vengeance. When David committed a fault against God, God was
disappointed in him and sent the prophet Gad in order to communicate
His anger to David and the punishment that would follow. David was
able to choose between three punishments: three years of famine,
three months of fleeing before his enemies, or three days of
pestilence from the Lord over the earth (1 Chr 21:12). David
responded, “I am in dire straits. But I prefer to fall into the hand
of the Lord, whose mercy is very great, than into the hands of men”
(21:13).
There are constant references in the
psalms to the mercy of God; however, the Prophet Jonah summarizes
very well what it means, for after having been angered, God forgave
the people of Nineveh because they believed in Him and were
converted. Jonah said, “I beseech you, Lord…is not this what I said
while I was still in my own country? This is why I fled at first to
Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to
anger, rich in clemency, loathe to punish” (Jonah 4:2).
The entire book of the Prophet Jonah
prepares us for the “evangelical revelation of the God of love” (Cf.
Gaudium et Spes, 22), the greatest act of mercy that God has
done for mankind: “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn
1:14). The Word became flesh so that we would come to know the love
of God: “In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent
his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him.
In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us
and sent his Son as expiation for our sins” (1 Jn 4: 9-10). In
order to save us, to free us from the evil one, sin, the world and
the flesh, the Father sent His Son, so that through His words,
works, passion, death and resurrection, He would redeem us,
purchasing us with His blood and bringing us back into the Kingdom
of God. “For Christ, while we were still helpless, yet died at the
appointed time for the ungodly…
God proves his love for us in that
while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (Rm 5:6,8). This
mercy continues to pour forth through the Sacraments and through the
Church – especially in Confession and in the Eucharist. He came to
nullify evil with good, to transform our sin into grace, and to
transform our suffering into a means of sanctification. He went
through the world “doing good.”
We could could enter so deeply into
the immense mercy of God and that of which it consists, but I would
like to now reflect on how the message of Divine Mercy has been so
evident in these times and how important it is to embrace it.
How has
Mercy manifested itself in the Modern world?
The message of mercy has a great and
special urgency in our times. God wants to speak to our generation,
and He desires that we listen and respond to His word. In this
generation – so marked by the culture of death; by the crisis of
faith, hope and charity; by world wars, atomic bombs, terrorism,
rebellion and autonomy from God; by the desire of men to be like
God; by an era of violence and family destruction; by abortion,
drugs, poverty, natural disasters, and sexual immorality of all
kinds; and by a great crisis in the Church – we can only exclaim,
“Have mercy on us, Lord, and on the whole world!”
In one of the darkest periods of the
twentieth century (between the First and Second World Wars), the Lord
chose St. Maria Faustina, a Polish religious from the Order of Our
Lady of Mercy, to be, as He told her, “the secretary of my Mercy;
I have chosen you for that office in this and the next life”
(Diary, 1605).
In the conditions of today’s world,
one of the darkest in the world and in the Church, the Lord wants to
remind us of His infinite mercy, which is more and more accessible to
the extent that we need for it. “Human misery is not an obstacle
to my mercy. My daughter, write that the greater the misery of
souls, so much greater will they have right to my mercy; invite all
souls to trust in the inconceivable depth of my mercy” (Diary,
1182).
Saint Faustina played an important
and integral part in the message of mercy because God wanted to
choose her as an instrument. He chose His trumpet to announce His
message – not thunder and lightning – but a secretary and Apostle of
mercy. The importance of the Divine Mercy message for our modern
world was revealed to us clearly by her canonization during the
Jubilee year – a Year of Grace and Mercy, a year in which the
Merciful Heart of Christ was opened for humanity. She was the first
Saint of the Third Millennium. The Holy Father wanted to direct the
gaze of two centuries – the one drawing to a close and the new one
just beginning – to the Mercy of God. “What will the years ahead
bring us? What will man's future on earth be like? We are not given
to know. However, it is certain that in addition to new progress
there will unfortunately be no lack of painful experiences. But the
light of divine mercy, which the Lord in a way wished to return to
the world through Sr. Faustina's charism, will illumine the way for
the men and women of the third millennium…Sr. Faustina's canonization
has a particular eloquence: by this act I intend today to pass this
message on to the new millennium” (John Paul II, Homily of
Canonization, April 30, 2000, no.3,5).
In one of the darkest ages of great
sin and great rejection of the love and the law of God – and
therefore, as a consequence, great selfishness and lack of charity –
Jesus revealed the image of Divine Mercy that bore the wounds He
revealed to His Apostles in the Cenacle – Apostles who were fearful
of persecution and rejection and who were weak in their faith.
“If you do not believe my words, at least believe my wounds”
(Diary, 379). He revealed Himself with the signs of His passion –
an act of the immense mercy of God, but also one that manifests
resurrection and triumph over evil. Love is stronger than death;
good is stronger than evil. He told them, “Peace be with you” (Jn
20:19). But before pronouncing those words, He showed them His
hands and side, as if to point out the wounds of His passion,
especially the wound of His Heart – fountain from which the great
wave of mercy was poured forth over humanity. “From all my
wounds, like from streams, mercy flows for souls, but the wound in
My Heart is the fountain of unfathomable Mercy. From this fountain
springs all graces for souls. The flames of compassion burn me. I
desire greatly to pour them out upon the souls” (Diary, 1190).
St. Faustina saw two rays of light flow from His Heart which
illuminated the world. These two rays, Jesus explained to her,
represented Blood and Water. Blood and Water! This is what St.
John the Evangelist described to us; for he saw, when the soldier
pierced the side of Christ with a sword, Blood and Water pouring
forth (Jn 19:34). Divine Mercy reaches men through the Pierced
Heart of Christ. Jesus told St. Faustina, “Tell [all
people], My daughter, that I am Love and Mercy itself” (Diary
1074). Christ poured out this mercy upon humanity through the
sending of the Holy Spirit who, in the Trinity, is Love. For is not
mercy a second name for love (DM, 7)? We come to understand this
when we come to understand its most profound and tender aspect: its
desire to alliviate any need and particularly its immense capacity
to forgive. “My Heart rejoices in this title of Mercy”
(Diary, 300).
Does not all humanity and each one
of us today need to ask for and receive the forgiveness of God? Yes
– and very much so. “Look and see the human race in its present
condition” (Diary, 445). But we must to do so with the greatest
confidence in the fact that the mercy of God is infinite. “I
desire that priests proclaim this great mercy of mine towards souls
of sinners. Let the sinner not be afraid to approach me. The
flames of mercy are burning me – clamoring to be spent; I want to
pour them out upon these souls” (Diary, 50). “I desire that
that the whole world know my infinite mercy. I desire to grant
unimaginable graces to those souls who trust in my Mercy” (Diary
687). “Encourage souls to place great trust in my fathomless
mercy. Let the weak, sinful soul have no fear to approach me, for
even if it had more sins than are grains of sand in the world, all
would be drowned in the immeasurable depths of my mercy” (Diary
1059).
The Holy Father has said many times
that peace is in great danger. Peace is an announcement of Divine
Mercy. For was it not in between those two World Wars that Jesus
came to offer His Mercy? Is not this mercy the only means of
obtaining peace – personal, familial, social and world? Jesus told
St. Faustina, “Mankind will not have peace until it turns with
trust to my Mercy” (Diary, 300).
Five
Ways to Promote Mercy: 5 Wounds
The Lord revealed to St. Maria
Faustina five ways to fulfill her mission of mercy: the Image of
Mercy, the Feast of Mercy, the Chaplet and Novena of Mercy, the Hour
of Mercy, and works of mercy towards others.
The Image of the Merciful Jesus
On the 22nd of February,
1931, Saint Faustina received the first revelation of the Mercy of
God. She wrote about it in her diary: “When I was in my cell at
night, I saw the Lord Jesus dressed in white. One of his hands was
lifted as if to give His blessing, and with the other hand, he
touched his veil, which was slightly opened at the chest. Two long
rays shone: one was red and the other was white. I remained in
silence contemplating the Lord. My soul was fearful but also full
of immense joy. After a while the Lord told me, “Paint an image
according to the pattern you see, with the signature: Jesus, I
trust in You. I desire that this image be venerated, first in your
chapel, and [then] throughout the world. I promise that the soul
that will venerate this image will not perish. I also promise
victory over [its] enemies already here on earth, especially at the
hour of death. I Myself will defend it as My own glory” (Diary,
47-48).
On the order of her confessor, Saint
Faustina asked the Lord the meaning of the two rays which appeared
to be coming from His Heart in the image. The Lord responded, “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. These rays shield souls from the wrath of My
Father. Happy is the one who will dwell in their shelter, for the
just hand of God shall not lay hold of him (Diary, 299)…
I am offering people a
vessel with which they are to keep coming for graces to the fountain
of mercy. That vessel is this image with the signature: ‘Jesus, I
trust in You,’”(Diary,
327).
The Feast of Divine Mercy
Jesus asked St. Faustina that this
feast be celebrated solemnly on the first Sunday after Easter. He
told her, “I desire that the Feast of Mercy139 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 approach the Fount of My
Mercy. The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy
Communion shall obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment.
On that day all the divine floodgates through which graces flow are
opened” (Diary, 699). On April 30th, 2000
during the canonization of St. Faustina, John Paul II officially
proclaimed that the second Sunday after Easter would be the Feast of
Divine Mercy. He said, “This Second Sunday of Easter…from now on
throughout the Church will be called ‘Divine Mercy Sunday’” (no.3).
Furthermore, he said that Divine Mercy “is a continual invitation to
the Christian world to face, with confidence in divine benevolence,
the difficulties and trials that await humanity in the coming years”
(cf. no.6).
The Chaplet and Novena
“I give great graces to souls who
meditate devoutly on My Passion”
(Diary, 737).
On September 13th, 1935
St. Faustina had a vision of an angel who was about to carry out the
justice of God, and her prayers were not placating this justice.
The chaplet was then revealed to her: “Eternal Father, I offer You
the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your dearly beloved son,
Our Lord Jesus Christ for our sins and those of the whole world; for
the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us” (Diary, 475).
“Oh what great graces I will
grant to those souls who say this chaplet; the very depths of My
tender mercy are stirred for the sake of those who say the chaplet.
Write down these words, My daughter. Speak to the world about my
Mercy; let all mankind recognize My unfathomable mercy. It is a
sign for the end times; after it will come the day of justice.
While there is still time, let them have recourse to the fount of My
mercy; let them profit from the Blood and the Water which gushed
forth from them” (Diary, 848).
The Novena came about in the
following way, as she recorded in her Diary: “The Lord told me to
say this chaplet for nine days before the Feast of Mercy. It is to
begin on Good Friday. ‘By this novena, I will grant every
possible grace to souls’” (Diary, 796).
Furthermore, Jesus said to her, “I
desire that during these nine days you bring souls to the fountain
of My mercy, that they may draw from there strength and refreshment
and whatever grace they need in the hardships of life, and
especially at the hour of death. On each day you will bring to My
Heart a different group of souls, and you will immerse them in this
ocean of My mercy, and I will bring all these souls into the house
of My Father…
On each day you will beg My Father,
on the strength of My bitter Passion, for graces for these souls”
(Diary, 1209).
St. Faustina answered, “Jesus, I do
not know how to make this novena or which souls to bring first into
Your Most Compassionate heart.” Jesus answered that He would tell
her which souls to bring to His Heart each day (ibid).
The Great Hour of Mercy
On October 10th, 1937,
Saint Faustina received instructions from the Lord concerning
another principal element of the devotion to Divine Mercy: the Hour
of Great Mercy. Jesus said to her, “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 for the whole
world. I will allow you to enter into My mortal sorrow. In this
hour, I will refuse nothing to the soul that makes a request of me
in virtue of My Passion” (Diary, 1320).
Jesus desires people, at three in
the afternoon, to submerge themselves in His Divine Mercy, as it is
the hour in which mercy triumphed over justice (Diary, 1572). It
was the hour of grace for the entire world, the hour in which the
Lord gave Himself for our sins and gave us salvation. The Lord
wants us to venerate His mercy in that hour and to trust totally in
Him, asking Him for all that we need. He told St. Faustina: “The
more a soul trusts, the more it will receive. Souls that trust
boundlessly are a great comfort to Me, because I to pour all the
treasures of my graces into them. I rejoice when they ask me for
much, because it is my desire is to give much, very much. On the
other hand, I am sad when souls ask for little, when they narrow
hearts (Diary, 1578).
To Give the Mercy we have Received
“My daughter, look into My Merciful
Heart and reflect its Compassion in your own heart and in your
deeds, so that you, who proclaim my mercy to the world, may yourself
be aflame with it”
(Diary, 1688).
During her retreat in October 1936,
Jesus gave St. Faustina explicit indications about what true
devotion to the Divine Mercy consists of. “My daughter, if I
demand through you that people revere My mercy, you should be the
first to distinguish yourself by this confidence in My mercy. I
demand from your deeds of mercy, which are to arise out of love for
Me. You are to show mercy to your neighbors always and everywhere.
You must not shrink from this or try to excuse or absolve yourself
from it. I am giving you three ways of exercising mercy toward your
neighbor: the first — by deed, the second — by word, the third — by
prayer. In these three degrees is contained the fullness of mercy,
and it is an unquestionable proof of love for Me. By this means a
soul glorifies and pays reverence to My mercy (Diary, 742). St.
Faustina’s heart was so enflamed with love and mercy for souls that
on October 25th, 1936, she wrote, “I shall fight all
evil with the weapon of mercy. I am being burned up by the desire to
save souls. I traverse the world’s length and breadth and venture
as far as its ultimate limits and its wildest lands to save souls. I
do this through prayer and sacrifice. I want every soul to glorify
the mercy of God” (Diary, 745).
Jesus said to her, “My daughter,
I desire that your heart be formed after the model of my Merciful
Heart. You must be completely imbued with my Mercy” (Diary,
167). A small act of mercy is a perpetual act that endures forever.
Jesus I
Trust in You.
“Trust in Me” – this is the cry of
the Lord through the mouth of His servant St. Faustina. If we could
summarize the devotion to Divine Mercy in one word, it would be
trust. For trust is the first response to the awareness of His
infinite mercy. “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).
His Holiness John Paul II stated
that his special mission from the first day of his pontificate was
to proclaim mercy. At the beatification of St. Faustina, he said,
“It is truly marvelous the way in which the devotion to the Merciful
Jesus has opened a path in our contemporary world and has conquered
human hearts! This is without doubt, a sign of our twentieth
century. But though divine Mercy has conquered many hearts for
good, there still exists in this closing century a profound unrest
and fear about the future. Only in Divine Mercy will the world find
refuge and the light of hope” (cf. April 18, 1993).
In his visit to the Shrine of Divine
Mercy in 1997, the Holy Father said, “The Church re-reads the
Message of Mercy in order to bring with greater effectiveness to
this generation at the end of the Millennium and to future
generations the light of hope. Unceasingly the Church implores from
God mercy for everyone. ‘At no time and in no historical period…can
the Church forget the prayer that is a cry for the mercy of God amid
the many forms of evil which weigh upon humanity and threaten it . .
. The more the human conscience succumbs to secularization, loses
its sense of the very meaning of the word 'mercy', moves away from
God and distances itself from the mystery of mercy, the more the
Church has the right and the duty to appeal to the God of mercy
‘with loud cries’’ (DM,15)…I come here to commend the concerns of
the Church and of humanity to the merciful Christ. On the threshold
of the Third Millennium I come to entrust to him once more my
Petrine ministry – ‘Jesus, I trust in you!’” (June 7, 1997).
Divine
Mercy and the Blessed Virgin
The gift of divine mercy to our
generation is a grace granted to us through the intercession and
maternal mediation of the Virgin Mary. Furthermore, Poland was the
place chosen to bring forth this light of mercy. “I bear a
special love for Poland, and if she will be obedient to My will, I
will exalt her in might and holiness. From her will come forth the
spark that will prepare the world for My final coming” (Diary,
1732).
Our Holy Father John Paul II, St.
Faustina, and St. Maximilian were all Apostles of mercy, formed by
the Virgin of Czestochowa in Jasna Gora which means “luminous
mountain” or “the light will come.”
In Fatima, Our Lady asked us to pray
and make sacrifices for sinners; in other words, she asked for acts
of great mercy. At the same time of the revelations to St.
Faustina, Sr. Lucia, visionary of Fatima, had a vision of the
Trinity. In this vision the words “grace and mercy” were flowing
from the wounds of the Son. “I am giving mankind the last hope of
salvation; that is, recourse to My mercy” (Diary, 998).
Conclusion
As it always happens in the history
of salvation, the last word between God and sinful humanity is not
of judgment and punishment, but of love and forgiveness. God does
not want to judge and condemn, but to save and liberate humanity
from evil. He continues to repeat the words that we read in the
Prophet Ezekiel: “Do I indeed derive any pleasure from the death of
the wicked?…Do I not rather rejoice when he turns from his evil way
that he may live?… Why should you die, O house of Israel? For I have
no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies…Return and live!”
(Ezekiel 18:23, 31-32).
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