Article from: The Priest Who First Believed Faustina: https://www.thedivinemercy.org/articles/priest-who-first-believedfaustina anything; My gaze is on him day and night. There will be as many crowns to form his crown as there will be souls saved by this work. It is not for the success of a work, but for the suffering that I give reward" (90). During the 20-year ban of the devotion (1959-1978, due to faulty translations of the Diary), Fr. Sopocko took comfort in Sr. Faustina's prophecy that the devotion would only seem to be "utterly undone" (see Diary, 378). Indeed 1935, St. Faustina had a vision of the road ahead for her confessor: Once as I was talking with my spiritual director, I had an interior vision — quicker than lightening — of his soul in great suffering, in such agony that God touches very few souls with such fire. The suffering arises from this work. There will come a time when this work, which God is demanding so very much, will be as though utterly undone. And then God will act with great power, which will give evidence of its authenticity. It will be a new splendor for the Church, although it has been dormant in it from long ago. That God in infinitely merciful, no one can deny. He desires everyone to know this before He comes again as Judge. He wants souls to come to know Him first as King of Mercy. When this triumph comes, we shall already have entered the new life in which there is no suffering. But before this, your soul [referring to Fr. Sopocko] will be surfeited with bitterness at the sight of the destruction of your efforts. However, this will only appear to be so, because what God has once decided upon, He does not change. But although this destruction will be such only in outward appearance, the suffering will be real. When will this happen? I do not know. How long will it last? I do not know. But God has promised a great grace especially to you and to all those... "who will proclaim My great mercy. I shall protect them Myself at the hour of death as my own glory" (378). Father Sopocko died in 1975, before his zeal for Divine Mercy was vindicated by the lifting of the ban. Three years after his death, with the help of the Archbishop of Kracow, Karol Cardinal Wojtyla, the ban was lifted. Cardinal Wojtyla would become Pope John Paul II, who eventually beatified and canonized St. Faustina. It was St. John Paul II who also declared: "There is nothing more man needs than Divine Mercy - that love which is benevolent, which is compassionate, which raises man above his weakness to the infinite heights to the holiness of God." Divine Mercy has since become what Fr. Seraphim calls "the greatest grassroots movement in the history of the Church." None of this would have been possible if it weren't for Fr. Sopocko, the priest who believed St. Faustina. For more information about Blessed Sopocko, please visit thedivinemercy.org/sopocko. Image from: https://www.marian.org/news/Just-a-Tip-When-This-Priest-Speaks-of-Trust-Trust-Him-4377 Blessed Michael Sopocko, pray for us!
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