Divine Mercy: The Heart of the Gospel

The Mercy of God and Modern Medicine 139 to do good to all who suffered and to do good with her own sufferings. Reading the Diary o f Blessed Faustina — which should not be a sur­ prising suggestion to those devoted to the human and ethical care of the sick, since moral theology encompasses both bio-ethics and spirituality — presents us with a fascinating portrait o f a woman who has fully real­ ized her vocation as a human being and as a religious along the road of suffering, a way which called her to a constant assimilation to Christ. It is Christ Who said to her, “Look into My Heart, and see there the Love and Mercy which I have for mankind, and especially for sin­ ners. Look, and enter into My Passion” {Diary, 1663). But this same Sister Faustina, rich in so many mystical experiences, also provides us in her Diary with a fascinating, honest portrait o f one who is suffering, and one who is in need. We have very few diaries or autobiographies of the saints. Those that we do have are fascinating spiritual portraits. Sister Faustina’s Diary needs to be examined not only by theologians and not only by leaders of the apostolate; it especially needs to be pre­ sented to healthcare providers, to doctors and nurses, and perhaps a new index, a new analysis, should be written o f Sister Faustina’s experience of suffering. Her suffering was not only mystical, but physical and human, owed to an illness that was long hidden, only lately diagnosed, and which caused her to pass through the hands and the prejudices of many doctors before she finally found proper care. Her honesty and her needs will help to validate and elevate the experience o f doctors and nurses who write about the sick and dying from a humanistic, humanly merciful, point o f view, but who don’t yet know how to integrate Divine Mercy with their own sense o f benevolence, justice and human solidar­ ity. But listen to what Faustina can teach us. In the Diary, entry nos. 1509 and 1511, we read: It often happens when one is ill, as is the case o f Job in the Old Testament, that as long as one can move about and work every­ thing is fine and dandy. But when God sends illness, somehow or other, there are fewer friends about. Yet there are some; they still take interest in our suffering and all that, but if God sends a longer illness even those faithful friends slowly begin to desert us. They visit us less frequently, and often their visits cause suffering. Instead of comforting us they reproach us about certain things, which is an occasion of a good deal o f suffering. And so the soul, like Job, is alone. But fortunately it is not alone because it has