Divine Mercy: The Heart of the Gospel

110 Divine Mercy: The Heart Of The Gospel Conclusion Formed largely in the Ignatian and Carmelite traditions o f European piety in the early twentieth century, Blessed Faustina was granted a personal relation with Jesus, an intimacy in which He served as her very director, her spouse.85 For a contemporary Catholic, the absence of much explicit Scripture from her Journal is striking, and yet if she is to be believed — and the Church has believed her — the very words of Christ were uttered directly to her, and her Journal takes on a signifi­ cance beyond that of pious reading. The message o f the Divine Mercy, and the means to express that Mercy given the Church through Faustina, are popularly known. What has interested us in our study has been the notion o f justice which lies behind the Divine Mercy, and the means to propitiate that justice. By taking the place o f sinners before the Father, Jesus, “bloody and covered with wounds” averts the wrath of God and pulls down God’s Mercy: that which is sin to our eyes is the woundedness o f the Son to the Father. Hence, the essential importance o f Stellvertretung in the economy of salvation. It is the free choice o f human beings that allows the Heart of God to be operative in them or not. It is possible to reject the offered gift: but it is the deepest desire o f the Heart o f God that all be saved and so His judgment is in service of His love. For one who accepts the gift, it is important to “pass it on.” That is, the Christian is given the awesome dignity of being a co-redeemer in Christ o f the universe. One’s sufferings, united with those of Christ in the Eucharist, serve to transform the world from the place o f God’s anger, His justice, to that softening o f the heart which is Mercy. The con­ demned sinner’s lot is shared by a soul willing to love him, that is, to exchange places with him: this is salvation. This is the salvation mod­ eled by Jesus with the Good Thief. It is to so love another, that one sends himself into the other’s place (Jn. 3:16). Just before her death, Faustina had written: “if the angels were capa­ ble of envy, they would envy us for two things: one is the receiving of Holy Communion, and the other is suffering” (1804). In the sufferings of Blessed Faustina, we see the price paid for her doctrine of Mercy which,