Her devotion helped us to pray with her
When I go to work I was told about her. She was a very devout Catholic woman, praying the Rosary as well as the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Her devotion to the Lord was so great that when I was paged to visit her I simply felt the need to pray the Divine Mercy chaplet with her.
The date for the Mass at her bedside was fixed. I was touched to see all her three children surrounding the bed on a Friday afternoon. The room was set us simply for us. We started Mass and everything flowed well. After we received Holy Communion, as we usually do in the ward, we prayed together the Divine Mercy Chaplet. I was really impressed with how much faith she prayed it. Her faith practically led her children to start making this chaplet one of their favorite prayers as it has certainly been to her throughout these years.
Things progressed and her health condition got worse. However, one thing remained stable, the great peace she had in her and around her. In fact, every time I managed to visit her I could feel this incredible and unexplainable peace. What this peace reminded me is precisely what Jesus himself said about his mercy: Mankind will not have peace until it turns with trust to My mercy (Diary, 300).
Do we want peace of heart, peace of mind, peace in the family, peace in the world, peace wherever you go? Let us turn with trust to Jesus’ mercy. In practice, turning to Jesus’ mercy means being aware of our hearts’ movements throughout our days. Let us embrace our emotions, whatever they are. Let us bring our hearts to Jesus as well as to His Mercy. Let us entrust our heart, our life, our loved ones, our concerns to him and His mercy. With Jesus the music of our life takes a different take. As St Francis de Sales said: Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.
Jesus and St Faustina really help us to quite both our minds and hearts to find Jesus’ everlasting peace. In her Diary, St Faustina wrote Jesus’ words to her: My daughter, encourage souls to say the chaplet which I have given to you. It pleases Me to grant everything they ask of Me by saying the chaplet. When hardened sinners say it, I will fill their souls with peace, and the hour of their death will be a happy one (Diary, 1541).Much on the same lines of the Rosary, Like the Rosary, the Chaplet of Divine Mercy can be prayed as a quiet meditation on the Passion. It is when we take time to quiet ourselves to focus our minds and hearts on Christ, that we will receive the peace He will be filling our souls with. It would be fantastic if we can do that before the Blessed Sacrament in a chapel. If this is not possible we can intentionally make ourselves aware of God’s presence within us, wherever we may happen to be.
The more St Faustina started focusing more on Christ and who she was in Him as His daughter, this fact brought her abundant peace. In fact, she wrote, From the moment when You let me fix the eyes of my soul on You, O Jesus, I have been at peace and desired nothing else, I found my destiny at the moment when my soul lost itself in You, the only object of my love. In comparison with you, everything is nothing (Diary, 57).
Our doubts and fears are not capable of keep us away from Jesus’ mercy provided that we tell Jesus: Jesus I trust in you as I am. These fears and doubts which we find so difficult to surrender can be a golden opportunity for us to enter at the core of Jesus’ merciful heart by our humble prayer: Jesus I trust in you. As Jesus said to St Faustina: Be at peace, My daughter, it is precisely through such misery that I want to show the power of My mercy (Diary, 133).
God’s daily message for us is to be at peace. Let us place our heart, mind and concerns into His loving hands. Let us hold fondly His heart beating with love for us. Exactly as a child does when she finds herself in her mother’s most loving and caring arms. Even our souls find their true peace in Him as Psalm 131 verse 2 tells us: But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a child quieted at its mother’s breast; like a child that is quieted is my soul.
In you O Jesus I find my true and everlasting peace. Jesus I trust in you.
Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap
