The Sacred Heart Of Jesus and Saint Claude De La Colombiere

If it was the privilege of the daughters of the Visitation Order to make the devotion to the Sacred Heart known, and to be the faithful messengers of this errand of love, it was reserved in a more special manner to the Fathers of the Society of Jesus to promulgate its utility and cultus; and to them the promise was made that their Apostolic Labours should bear fruit beyond expectation, and that this Devotion should be to them Salvation and perfection.

St. Claude La Colombiere was born at St. Symphorien d'Ozan, on the Feast of the Purification, 1641. His name must for ever be coupled with that of St. Margaret Mary and Devotion to the Sacred Heart, for it was this holy Jesuit whom our Lord had singled out to be the director and support of the humble nun who had never before been truly understood.

He was the faithful servant and true friend to whom she had been bidden to go in one of those mysterious communications in the early days of her religious life.

St. Claude de la Colombiere was in his eighteenth year when he passed from the Jesuit College at Lyons to the novitiate of the Society; and after his ordination, at the end of his third year of probation at Lyons, he was sent to be Superior at Paray-le-Monial.

It was at this time that he gave his first spiritual conference to the daughters of St. Francis de Sales; and as St. Margaret Mary Alacoque listened to his words, an interior voice told her that here was indeed the favoured soul who was to share her favours and her trials.

This happened in the year 1674, and in the Lent of the following year he became spiritually acquainted with the state of her soul, as she said herself

Though with much reluctance, I laid bare my whole heart to him, and showed to him the whole state of my soul, both the good and the bad.

St. Claude La Colombiere was not slow to recognise the light and power of God in the revelations and visions confided to him, and though he acted with great prudence, after much prayer he pronounced his belief that they were the work of God.

After this decision, he gave himself entirely to the task of spreading this Devotion to the Sacred Heart, and he began by consecrating him self to Its service on June 21, 1676.

On that day he received such an increase of grace and love of God that he felt more than ever assured of the truth of the revelations and the efficacy of this Devotion.

In a letter he wrote about this time to his sister, who was a nun of the Visitation Order, he says :

I entreat you to receive Holy Communion on the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi, in order to make atonement for the insults offered to our Lord. This custom has been recommended by a person of wonderful holiness, who declares that the greatest blessings shall come to those who give this token of love to our Lord.

Try to win over your friends to the practice of a like devotion.

For a whole year after this he remained at Paray, the constant guide and counsellor of St. Margaret Mary, their souls knit together by the bond of that one earnest desire to promote the interests of Jesus Christ, as manifested in this Devotion.

He was, as it were, passing through this school of the Sacred Heart, and learning the lessons of his future Apostolate through the agency of his lowly penitent; but when that period had expired, he went forth to preach what he had learned therein.

St. Claude La Colombiere brings the Sacred Heart Devotion to England:

Fresh from this super natural atmosphere, he was sent to face the Royal Court of the Queen of England, Mary of Modena, wife of James II. As her Chaplain, he had to preach, although secretly, before the Court, and even in many other parts of London, which was at this time steeped in heresy, and teeming with those who were endeavouring to blot out the very name of Catholic from the hearts and memories of men.

Straight from the fire of the Sacred Heart, he had to confront the coldness of a people clamorous for the extinction of every thing holy; yet such was the success of his ministry during the four years he lived in our capital, that it was from St. James’s Palace that the first petition was sent to the Holy See for the establishment of the Feast of the Sacred Heart.

It was in the Royal Chapel of this Palace that St. Claude La Colombiere so often said the prayer which he had composed for himself and for England ; and could we breathe a more appropriate one for ourselves and the present interests of the Church than the following :

O my God, Thou must give us a new heart a heart like Thine. Thou must give us Thine own Heart. Come, O loving Heart of Jesus, and place Thyself in my breast ; come and kindle there a love great enough, if it be possible, to fulfil the duty I have of loving Thee.

He had the happiness of seeing this prayer answered in numerous cases; for through his labours many were reconciled to the Faith, many left their life of worldliness for the religious state, and even those whose duty it was to remain amidst the dangers of the Court were influenced by him to be less frivolous, and more earnest in seeking their eternal salvation.

England undoubtedly owes much to this exiled Jesuit, and we cannot help noticing as somewhat remarkable that he was born on February 2, the day on which the Roman Martyrology commemorates the Feast cf St. Lawrence, one of those forty Benedictine monks whom St. Augustine brought over to this land of ours, and whom he consecrated first Archbishop of Canterbury.

Did he not receive with his name the glorious mission of preaching the Gospel on foreign soil? We cannot tell what may have been the Saint’s baptismal gift to this venerable servant of God, but we think this incident will increase the interest of all English-speaking Catholics in furthering the cause of his beatification, even if the Holy Father had not expressed his desire to see him publicly honoured on our altars.

It is two years since Leo XIII styled him:

My friend since my childhood. He said, I have always loved him because of what I read about him, and on account of his relation with the Sacred Heart and Blessed Margaret Mary. Oh yes, I much desire his beatification.

His banishment from England, his sufferings and arrest, are matters of history, and have been so recently described in various magazines that we will not enlarge upon them here.

On his return to Lyons he passed by Paray-le-Monial, and had a brief interview with Blessed Margaret Mary, concerning which he tells one of her Superiors that he was much consoled by this visit; and it was not to be wondered at that this heavenly intercourse was as oil poured out on his soul after the guarded and narrow limits of the English Court.

Leaving Paray, he lived for two and a half years at Lyons, during twelve months of which he was spiritual director of the students of the Society of Jesus. Among those whom he trained and filled with devotion to the Sacred Heart were the Pere de Galliffet and Pere Croiset.

The first named has been honoured with the title of Apostle of the Devotion to the Sacred Heart, and to him we owe the publication of the memoir of St. Margaret Mary, written by herself. It was he also who, notwithstanding the first rebuff from Rome, persevered until he obtained the sanction of the Holy See for the establishment of the Feast.

Pere Croiset was privileged to have an interview with Blessed Margaret Mary, and she foretold of him that the devotion would be every where made known through means of a book of Pere Croiset, a Jesuit. How this prophecy was in part fulfilled, even in her own lifetime, we think will interest our readers to learn, and therefore we give the account in the holy nun’s own words. Writing to a friend, she says :

“I must tell you something which is for the glory of the Divine Heart, and will cause you to bless It.
I had given one of the Dijon books to a lady from Lyons, who in return gave it to a young Father to read.

Having shown it to his pupils at Lyons, they took such a fancy to it that they made a great many copies, both of the litanies and of the prayers, which they recited very devoutly. And these children having shown them to others, these also got such a great devotion to them. As they were not able to make copies enough, they determined to have one of these books printed, offering to bear the expense.

One young workman was so anxious to take upon himself the expense, that they had to yield to his devotion. And when he went himself to one of the chief booksellers of Lyons, he too felt himself so moved with love of this Divine Heart that he offered out of devotion to publish it without making any charge, which caused a holy combat between the youth and himself. But he, having at length gained his point, got the book of the Sacred Heart, and went to one of his friends to have it written more fully, and a holy religious undertook this.

So it is newly printed, and very beautiful, and well bound, and the sale has been so great that a new edition has been brought out since June 19, and now, on August 21, there are no longer any copies left, and it is therefore going to be reprinted for the third time.”

In 1681 St. Claude La Colombiere was sent from Lyons to Paray, as if to die under the shadow of the sanctuary which he loved so well, for he only survived the change six months, dying on February 15, 1682.

During those brief months he never flagged in teaching his penitents the Devotion of the Holy Hour, of receiving Holy Communion on the first Friday of each month, and of setting apart the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi as a special feast in honour of the Sacred Heart.

We cannot do better in concluding this sketch than by quoting a passage from a pastoral letter written by a Vicar Apostolic in India to his people, and which beautifully describes the spirit of un selfishness which inflamed the soul of St. Claude La Colombiere a spirit which is the very essence of Christianity itself, and which must take possession of all souls who wish to share in the life and work of the Sacred Heart.

“A true Catholic”, he says, “is not the man who shuts himself up in his own soul, and is satisfied that is secure, without troubling himself about the good of his neighbour.

No, for the very name of Catholic teaches him that his heart ought to embrace the interests of Jesus Christ in the whole world, and to labour, by prayer at least, if he can do no more, to promote everywhere, and in every soul, the glory of God and the accomplishment of His holy will.”

Father George Kosicki C.S.B. -- A Modern Day Apostle Of Mercy

He was born in Detroit, Michigan on the Feast of Saint Martha, disciple of the Lord - July 29, 1928. Little did anyone realize at the time that he too would become a devoted disciple of the Lord as a Basilian Priest. 

The seeds for this vocation were planted in his early years through elementary Catholic schooling and then at Central Catholic High School in Detroit where he graduated in 1946. He went on to the University of Western Ontario, receiving his Bachelor's degree in 1951. That same year he entered St. Basil's in Toronto, the major scholasticate for the Congregation of Saint Basil, where four years later he was ordained a Basilian priest.
    
He returned to his home state where he enrolled in graduate studies at the University of Michigan acquiring a Masters a year later and then his Doctorate in Biochemistry in 1961. He was assigned by his Order to teach Biochemistry at the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada for sixteen years. After eleven years of teaching and experimental research work with twenty-four research publications in biochemistry and his five years of religious formation, Fr. Kosicki felt the pull to renew and deepen his interest in Spiritual renewal, in prayer life and in experimental work in the community.
    
A prolific writer, inspiring preacher, and researcher, Fr. George has written and published a plethora of books and articles beginning in 1966 with his book Like a Cedar of Lebanon published by Sheed and Ward, which was a study of images in Scripture from a biochemical point of view. Talk about an interesting viewpoint! Other books followed, first The Lord Is My Shepherd, a collection of witnesses by fellow priests, and secondly Forty-Days of Intercession, the continuous miracle of a loving community of priests interceding in prayer and fasting for their brother priests. Both books were published in 1975 by Word of Life. Key to the Good News, a summary of the Gospel that Jesus Christ is Lord, was published the same year by Dove Publications.
  
That same year, after active involvement in the Charismatic Renewal and the Houses of Prayer in Detroit for several years, he became coordinator of Bethany House of Intercession, a community of priests, bishops, and deacons in Warwick, Rhode Island and in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York interceding for bishops, priests and deacons worldwide. He remained there until 1983. 

 During that time he wrote a number of articles for several publications: Renewed Religious Life: The Dynamics of Re-discovery followed by The Mountaintop Experience: Its Value and Purpose in Spiritual Growth. A year later he released Steps Toward Christian Community and Assume Nothing: On Making Assumptions Explicit in Religious Renewal. In 1978, he wrote on Intercession, first Intercession: a Re-discovery of Power to Renew for Sisters Today followed by Pope Paul VI, Prophet in our Time and then Eucharist as Intercession in Emmanuel.
    
The year 1979 prompted him to write Keys to Christian Community in Pastoral Life and Pilgrimage and Purification: The Church in Travail in the 80's for The Crux of Prayer. In 1980 he wrote The Spirit and the Bride say, "Come!": Mary's role in the New Pentecost for the Ave Maria Institute and then Walk in Forgiveness in 1981, the same year he wrote The Good News of Suffering released by the Liturgical Press in Collegeville, Minnesota. Many of these have been re-released as leaflets or booklets.

After eight years at Bethany where he was in great demand as a speaker throughout the English-speaking world, he was called in 1983 to spend two and a half years with the Fraternity of Priests team working out of the Franciscan University of Steubenville in eastern Ohio where he remained for two and a half years, spending the last half of the third year in solitude with the Camaldolese hermits in prayer and writing. It was during this time he wrote a number of articles for New Covenant Magazine including Bless do not Curse, You are what you Think, Interceding as a Priestly People, and The Holy Spirit: Lord and Giver of Life.
    
He also wrote Born of Mary which was a compendium of testimonies, tensions and teachings published by Marian Press in Stockbridge. Led by a desire to promote the Message of God's Mercy that had been planted when his Polish family was introduced to the Divine Mercy devotion in the 1940's, Fr. George joined the Marians of Eden Hill in Stockbridge in 1987. 

He was later appointed Director of the Department of Divine Mercy, working in the publishing headquarters and devoted himself full time to writing, preaching and publishing the message of Divine Mercy, speaking to thousands at conferences, retreats and appearing often on Mother Angelica's Live Show as a guest on EWTN as well as becoming a regular fixture for years in a popular series on Divine Mercy.
    
During this association with the Marians he has written some best selling books including Revelations of Divine Mercy: Daily Readings from the Diary of Blessed Faustina, Be Apostles of Divine Mercy: Leader's Formation Manual, Now is the time for Mary, and Rejoice in the Lord Always all published by the Marian Helpers. Two of his books have been published by Faith Publishing Co. They are Intercession: Moving mountains by living Eucharistically and Spiritual Warfare, one of his most popular books. He continues to write a quarterly column that appears in the Marian Helpers' official publication the Bulletin four times a year.

After residing on Eden Hill for eight years, he returned to his Basilian roots, choosing to live in community of fellow priests from the Congregation of St. Basil in Rochester, New York. 

Credits : The Daily Catholic 

Aussie Duo Takes Up Saint Faustina's Cause

Invoking the Divine Mercy on the sick, the lonely and the troubled is the passion of an Australian duo who visited India.

Joy Hunt, and associate Ian Gaudery say that “modern day challenges leave many tense, disturbed and in need of God’s Divine Mercy.”

The Australians, who have toured more than six countries in the last 25 years, were in the southern city of Mangalore to spread devotion to the Divine Mercy.

“We were invited to Mangalore, Mysore and Vijayapuram dioceses of South India,” Hunt said, adding that India has more potential with regard to “in-depth spirituality.”

She has been committed to the cause since 1988, when the Combined Society of Mary was established in Australia, and is now its president. Hunt, who has visited India 18 times in the last 15 years, says she has spread the devotion in more than 90 dioceses, addressing approximately more than 2.5 million people.

She recalled that in Hyderabad in 2004, a woman with a heart problem was cured. “After the fourth decade of the Divine Mercy Chaplet, she began to dance and later her cardiologist said ‘she has a new heart’.”

This time we have come with a relic of Saint Faustina, said Gaudery. He said “the Divine Mercy devotion was ignited by Saint Faustina, whose diary is one of the great sources of valuable, mystical and spiritual writings the Church possesses.”

St Faustina, a Polish nun who was canonized in 2000, spread devotion to the Divine Mercy through her diary which noted the messages she received from God.

The Australians have also taken the devotion to Singapore, Sri Lanka, the Samoan Islands, the Tokelau Islands, and Fiji among other places. “This is officially accepted devotion by the Catholic Church and we go as per invitation by the archbishops and bishops,” says Hunt.

They undertake promotional tours for two months at their own expense.

The pair is also accompanied by a Buddhist convert, Maria Tine from Singapore. Tine, who has opened a Divine Mercy Home for children in Tanzania, said: “I was enlightened through Divine Mercy devotion in 1999.”

She said “many conversions have taken place in my family and among others I know which I believe are Divine Mercy miracles”.

Hunt and Gaudery were encouraged to take up the ministry by Fr Henry Poszlusny, a Polish priest who knew Saint Faustina’s family well. “Every year around 2000 major miracles through intercession to the Divine Mercy are reported in Poland while there could be many more which are not reported,” Hunt said.

“Through us, many hearts have been touched and three new churches have been named after the Divine Mercy. That is the success of the mission.”

Credits : UCA News 2012

Michigan Nun's Painting Of Jesus, The Divine Mercy The First In North America

A talented nun, a devoted priest and a devotion that has since become a global phenomenon.

Sometimes, all it takes is a person with faith and a happenstance meeting to create history.

It was 1942, and Father Joseph Jarzebowski, sent on a mission from Poland to spread the word about a little-known sister named Faustina and her devotion to the Divine Mercy, arrived to give a seminar to the Felician Sisters in Plymouth, now Livonia.

It was then that a certain Sister Mary Fabia Szatkowska, inspired by the message of God’s love, painted the first North American version of the now world-famous image, the centerpiece of one of the fastest-growing lay devotions in the world.

When Sister Mary Fabia painted the iconic image, which now hangs discreetly in a quiet hallway at the Felician Sisters’ motherhouse in Livonia, nobody was thinking about the historical significance of the moment but about spreading the devotion.

“Sister Mary Fabia had a tremendous love for Our Lady, tremendous love of the Eucharist,” said Sister Mary DeSales Herman, a member of the Felician Franciscan Sisters in Livonia for 68 years. “Spirituality is a gift, and she had it. You want to express your devotion to Jesus. She had a tremendous love for Jesus, and could express her faith through her work.”

Many of Sister Mary Fabia’s paintings adorn the halls of the Felician motherhouse, including a portrait of Father Jarzebowski. A member of the Congregation of Marians of the Immaculate Conception, he was responsible for bringing the devotion to the United States.

It spread throughout Polish-American communities in the United States after World War II, and today is nearly ubiquitous, thanks to the Marians.

Today, the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy is located on Eden Hill in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, the congregation’s headquarters, but Detroit seemed to play an important role in the early days of the devotion’s growing popularity in the North America.

The devotion to Jesus as the Divine Mercy is based on the writings of St. Faustina Kowalska, a young Polish nun who died of tuberculosis in 1938. On the second Sunday of Easter in 2000, St. John Paul II canonized Sister Faustina while establishing the liturgical date as “Divine Mercy Sunday.” 

During her short life, St. Faustina reportedly received messages from Jesus, which she recorded in a diary. In one of her entries, she described in detail how Jesus appeared to her and his desire that she “paint an image according to the pattern you see, with the inscription: ‘Jesus, I trust in you.'” At St. Faustina’s request, an artist created the image of Jesus with a hand raised in blessing and red and pale rays of light emanating from his heart and the inscription just below the rays.

St. Faustina told her spiritual director, Marian Father Michael Sopocko, about her experiences. With World War II breaking out across Europe, Father Sopocko entrusted the message to his fellow Marian, Father Jarzebowski, who was fleeing Nazi-controlled Poland for the United States.

To evade Soviet officials, Father Jarzebowski obtained a passport from the Japanese consulate in Lithuania and arrived in the U.S. on a Seattle-bound ship in 1941, with nothing but a folded-up image of the Divine Mercy and a copy of the novena in his pocket. Through a series of recommendations, Father Jarzebowski met a third-year seminarian who became convinced of the devotion’s power and helped spread the message in America.

By October 1942, the Marians had received permission from the archbishop of Baltimore to print the first Polish editions of the Divine Mercy chaplet. The first English translations, some 50,000 copies, were later printed with the help of the Felician Sisters in Michigan and Connecticut.

Another of Father Jarzebowski’s early stops was in Orchard Lake, where the Polish seminary attracted strong devotion to the image of Divine Mercy.

That connection led him to the Felician motherhouse in Plymouth, according to Kathleen Wolski-Nuttall, facilitator of the St. Mary Shrine Chapel Divine Mercy Cenacle in Orchard Lake. She has been researching the history of Divine Mercy devotions in the United States for the better part of two years.

Michigan’s mark on spreading the Divine Mercy devotions in the United States was largely lost to history, Wolski-Nuttall said, but Sister Mary Fabia’s painting remains as a testament to the legacy of Father Jarzebowski’s mission.

It wasn’t until another local parishioner alerted The Michigan Catholic, Detroit’s archdiocesan newspaper, about a letter Father Jarzebowski had written and recorded in a history of the Felician Sisters in America that details of the background of the first image of the Divine Mercy painted in the United States began to come to light.

“The painting in the Felician motherhouse in Livonia is the first painting in the United States. It started here in Michigan, that is definite,” Wolski-Nuttall said.

In the 1940s and through the 1960s, the Marian Fathers had houses throughout Detroit dedicated to the Divine Mercy devotion. The Archdiocese of Detroit one of the first in the country to have such devotions.

But in the 1960s, the Marians Fathers ended their presence in Michigan, taking most of the history with them back to Massachusetts.

Without the support of the Marians, the devotion’s fervor faded again.

Michigan’s part in spreading the devotion is rarely acknowledged, save for a letter Father Jarzebowski wrote in 1957 that is chronicled in “Blazing New England Trails: Love and Service,” the history of the Felician Sisters in Enfield, Connecticut, the first American painting is still with the Felicians in Livonia.

“Our community uses it to promote the honor of God,” Sister Mary DeSales said. “It takes an outsider to make you appreciate all the treasures you have. It’s the nature of religious people not to brag. Sister Fabia didn’t look to brag, taking vows to build a sense of spirituality. She was just an instrument, seeking God’s glory and honor.”

So how could the first painting of the Divine Mercy in the United States, such an important piece of Catholic history in America, go unnoticed for so long? Simple: In 1943, nobody knew it would be history.

“At the time, the devotion to the Divine Mercy image wasn’t a big thing in the United States; she never planned on her painting to be a big deal,” Sister Mary DeSales said. “But she was inspired and painted this right here.”

Credits : The Central Minnesota Catholic 

Artist creates Divine Mercy Windows for Fremont Catholic Church

With colored glass and paint, Ken Eldridge tells ancient Bible stories to modern-day people.

Eldridge is a stained glass artist for St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Fremont. For years, the local man had donated his time to create or restore stained glass windows for the parish.

Last year, he began working on the Divine Mercy windows project.

The windows will be installed in the Fremont church, with the process taking place during the week between Easter and Divine Mercy Sunday, an official Holy Day, on April 28.

Currently, there is glass between the church's chapel and a tabernacle room where the sacraments are stored. The Divine Mercy windows will be installed where that glass is now.

The main Divine Mercy window depicts Christ with two beams, one red and one white, coming from his heart.

Parishioners and guests will be able to see through the image of Jesus into the tabernacle room, where a cross is the same height as Christ's heart.

There are 15 separate Divine Mercy windows, the main one of which is 4 feet by 8 feet. Other windows are smaller.

One depicts a dove with a banner that reads: "Jesus, I trust in you." Angels are depicted in two other windows. The lowest window will have a Celtic weave. Subsequent windows will be colored glass.

Eldridge estimates he'll have spent close to 3,000 hours on the project by the time he's finished.

"For me to create this design, I did countless hours of research and continue to do so to make sure I'm depicting my interpretation of the Divine Mercy properly and accurately based on Sister Faustina," he said.

Sister Faustina Kowalska was a Polish woman assigned to a parish in Lithuania.

In 1931, Kowalska said she had a vision of Christ, who said to create a painting of him — with the two beams — and to call it "Divine Mercy." The red beam is said to represent blood and the white or pale one symbolizes water. It was to be accompanied with a banner with the "Jesus, I trust in you" message.

The parish commissioned the painting to be made, which Kowalska saw before her death in 1938. 

She was only 33 years old.

Decades later, Pope John Paul II canonized her and she became Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska.

Besides the depiction of Christ with the two beams coming from his heart, Eldridge has added other elements to the main window.

The elements include shamrocks reminiscent of Saint Patrick of Ireland, for whom the Fremont church is named.

He's added five-pedal white roses from the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which is especially meaningful to Hispanic parishioners.

In Bethlehem, A New Parish Group ---- The Apostles Of Divine Mercy

At the Church of St. Catherine in Bethlehem, a new parish group was launched: the Apostles of Divine Mercy in 2018.

The group, inspired by St. Faustina Kowalska (the Polish holy mystic of the early 20th century), focuses on the spirituality of the Divine Mercy. The consecration of the parishioners took place on the occasion of the Mass of Divine Mercy on Sunday, April 8.

At the Church of St. Catherine in Bethlehem, Br. Rami Asakrieh, the pastor, presided over the liturgy, before the relic of St. Faustina, which was brought from Poland, and the painting of Divine Mercy, which was blessed by Pope John Paul II. “Just two days before the celebration, a group from Marian movement who was visiting unexpectedly brought this relic,” said the pastor.

Mons. Leopoldo Girelli, the Apostolic Nuncio to Israel and Apostolic Delegate for Jerusalem and Palestine, also participated in the Eucharistic celebration.

The new group is made up of families from the Bethlehem parish and it is led and supported by Fr. Rami.

The Apostles of Divine Mercy will have the task of trying to spread St. Faustina’s spirituality in the same place where the Savior of the world was born. The members of the group will offer their services through prayer and assistance to all those in need, and above all, they will lead Eucharistic adoration in the parish on the first Friday of each month.

“I hope this group will help spread the desire for Jesus transmitted to St. Faustina,” said Fr. Rami. “And make His Mercy known to the whole parish with the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, the veneration of His image, the Eucharist and with Acts of Mercy.”

Credits : Franciscans Of The Holy Land 

Rome's Center Of Divine Mercy Established By Saint John Paul 2

Each day at 3 p.m. people gather to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet in Rome’s Santo Spirito in Sassia, a church containing relics of both St. Faustina Kowalska and St. John Paul II.

Located just steps from St. Peter’s Basilica, Santo Spirito in Sassia is Rome’s official Divine Mercy church.

"At the hour of Divine Mercy … truly the church is filled with many souls -- the young, the sick, couples, and people facing great difficulties of a moral nature who come to implore the Divine Mercy," Monsignor Jozef Bart, the church’s rector told CNA.

The Polish Priest was personally selected by St. Pope John Paul II to transform the 16th century church, originally built as a hospital chapel, into a center for the spirituality of Divine Mercy in 1994.

"Today in particular, I am pleased to be able to give thanks to God in this Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia, attached to the hospital of the same name, and now a specialized center for the pastoral care of the sick, as well as for the promotion of the spirituality of divine mercy," John Paul II said on Divine Mercy Sunday in 1995.

"It is very significant and timely that precisely here, next to this very ancient hospital, prayers are said and work is done with constant care for the health of body and spirit,” he said of the church.

In 2019, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin celebrated Mass for Divine Mercy Sunday in the church and Pope Francis extended a greeting to all who gathered in Santo Spirit in Sassia for the feast during his Regina Coeli address.

The Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, the order to which St. Faustina belonged, help to lead the daily prayers and catechesis on the Divine Mercy in Santo Spirito in Sassia.

“Jesus told St. Faustina, ‘Man does not find any peace until he turns with faith to the Divine Mercy,’” Monsignor Bart said.

The church offers Eucharistic adoration with priests available for confession in several languages, including English, at 6 p.m. each day.

“We priests must remember that we are channels, instruments of the Divine Mercy,” Bart explained.
"Divine Mercy! This is the Easter gift that the Church receives from the risen Christ and offers to humanity at the dawn of the third millennium,” St. John Paul II said on Divine Mercy Sunday in 2001.

“‘Jesus, I trust in you.’ This prayer, dear to so many of the devout, clearly expresses the attitude with which we too would like to abandon ourselves trustfully in your hands, O Lord, our only Savior,” he continued.

"A simple act of abandonment is enough to overcome the barriers of darkness and sorrow, of doubt and desperation. The rays of your divine mercy restore hope, in a special way, to those who feel overwhelmed by the burden of sin,” John Paul II said.

The Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia is located at 12 Via dei Penitenzieri in Rome, a five minute walk from St. Peter’s Basilica.