Divine Mercy: The Heart of the Gospel

154 Divine Mercy: The Heart Of The Gospel many others. One involved a young man who was married and had two children, who was estranged from his wife. He had become an addict and entered a promiscuous life-style. He was dying o f A.I.D.S. He was bleeding from every bodily orifice, and we could not transfuse blood fast enough to sustain him. When the Chaplet was prayed and the Image of The Divine Mercy was applied to him, in a matter o f four hours his condition stabilized and he retained the transfusions that he had been given. He survived long enough to be baptized, to receive his first Communion, to make his peace with his wife, to see his child, and to live for another three weeks before dying in complete peace under the gaze o f the Merciful Savior! And those, multiplied again and again and again! Religious people suffer such pain and suffer such fears also — and that is vitally important to recognize. Sister Faustina, in her ascent, went through such a period o f great spiritual pain. But along the way her con­ viction is what I have pointed out earlier, “The Lord is faithful. What He once ordains, He fulfills.” But that did not prevent her, as one of the Sisters testified at one point when she was in the sanitarium, from crying out, “Jesus! Are You there or not?” We need to remember that. We need to be grounded in the realities o f who this woman is whose mission of Divine Mercy was paid for in the complete and total gift of herself! When we are addressing the needs of such pain, healing cannot depend upon one person individually. It is the work o f many. It is the work of all the healthcare providers, o f family members, and of the Church through her pastoral care. But unless the healthcare providers come from a context from which they understand what the meaning of true mercy is, what their own mission involves, they are not going to provide such support; they will not be able to provide such healing. Theirs must be a loving presence, a presence which is a unique contri­ bution, even more so than their professional expertise, a contribution made to the dying person so that rejection of death becomes acceptance, and anguish can give way to hope. The dying process has to be human­ ized. The Holy Father wrote: Before the mystery o f death we are powerless, human certain­ ties waver, but it is precisely in the face o f such a checkmate that Christian Faith becomes a fount of security and peace; what seems meaningless takes on meaning and worth. When this checkmate takes place in the life o f a person in this decisive hour of his exis­ tence, the witness of the healthcare workers’ faith and hope in