Divine Mercy: The Heart of the Gospel

150 Divine Mercy: The Heart Of The Gospel something that she thought was important enough to be placed along­ side her revelations; it was part of her spiritual journey. Moreover if God has given this to us, it is because He wants us to learn something. For example, Diary entry no. 1555: “When Mother Irene visited me a week ago she said, ‘You catch every sickness, Sister, because your sys­ tem is so weak. But, that’s not your fault. In fact, if any other Sister had that same sickness, she’d certainly be up and walking around. Whereas you, Sister, must stay in bed.” “These words did not hurt me,” Faustina writes, “but it is better not to make such comparisons with very sick per­ sons, because their cup is full enough as it is.” Faustina is not a quiet vic­ tim here. She is an active, willing, voluntary and responding soul, not only to the grace of Christ, but to the world around her. “Another thing,” she says it doesn’t bother her, but she has another point to make: When Sisters visit the sick they should not ask in detail every time, ‘What’s hurting you?’ and ‘how much does it hurt?’, because it is very tiresome to keep telling each Sister the same thing about oneself, and it sometimes happens that one must repeat the same thing over and over many times in a day. “The attitude we have towards the terminally ill,” John Paul II wrote, “is often the acid test of our sense o f justice and charity” — What is justice plus charity? Mercy! — “o f our nobility o f mind, o f the responsibility and professionality o f healthcare workers, beginning with doctors.” Now, when we are confronted with questions in medical ethics with regard to euthanasia and mercy killing, they usually involve people who are either coming into the hospital for the first time seri­ ously, so they have had a long treatment outside o f the hospital but now they are coming in for their first session o f what we might call ‘pallia­ tive care’, or ‘respite care’, or it is at the moment o f their diagnosis. In these moments, what are they suffering? What do they fear? The two motivations that prompt such patients to ask for merciful deaths or assistance in dying are: fear of dying in pain, and fear o f dying alone. These are the two great human fears. In the lives o f many saints and mystics, you see a progressive detachment from the things o f this life and the needs of this world as they abandon themselves completely to God. You will find Sr. Faustina’s concern about pain and her concern about abandonment in the Diary. We have to realize that there are four different forms o f pain identified by caregivers and health profession­ als. To each of these four, mercy must be brought. Suffering can be