The greatest impetus toward the spread of this devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus came from the apparitions of our Lord Jesus Himself to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in the 1670s. To her the glorified Jesus unveiled His tender, burning love for souls, and through her He asked for the establishment of the annual liturgical feast of the Sacred Heart, as well as devotional practices such as the Holy Hour, the First Friday Communions, and the veneration of the image of His loving Heart. By these means our Lord intended to rekindle the fire of love in the hearts of the faithful, in a modern world in which the hearts of many were growing cold. In the twentieth century, however, from out of the heart of the Polish nation, our Lord has poured another fresh stream of devotion into His Church. It began when a simple Polish nun, St. Faustina Kowalska (1905-1938), with barely a third-grade education, wrote her Diary, which has been recognized as worthy of being numbered among the outstanding works of mystical literature. In St. Faustina we find a holy soul completely devoted to the Heart of Jesus, but in a new way. Much like the traditional devotion to the Sacred Heart, our Lord gave to St. Faustina new forms in which His Merciful Heart was to be honored, and new vessels for a fresh outpouring of His grace: the Image of The Divine Mercy, new prayers such as the Chaplet of The Divine Mercy and the prayers for the three oclock Hour of Mercy, and, of course, a new feast for the universal Church — the Feast of The Divine Mercy, intended for the Sunday after Easter.
Posted on: Mon, 09 Jun 2014 22:52:39 +0000
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