Divine Mercy: The Heart of the Gospel

98 Divine Mercy: The Heart Of The Gospel redeem the world. Faustina was worried for the little children, weeping, hungry and cold: o f such little children Jesus said: “Know that it is they who uphold the world” (286). Although Faustina will speak o f the “wrath of God,” o f bearing His anger, there is another dimension to this. None are damned unless they choose to be. In fact, God is always seeking the conversion o f souls: I pursue sinners along all their paths, and My Heart rejoices when they return to me... Tell sinners that no one shall escape My Hand; i f they run away from My Merciful Heart, they will fall into My Just Hands. Tell sinners that I am always waiting for them... Write, that I am speaking to them through their remorse o f conscience, through their failures and suffer­ ings, through thunderstorms, through the voice of the Church. And if they bring all my graces to naught, I begin to be angry with them, leaving them alone and giving them what they want (1728). Thus, God is the “hound o f Heaven” who yet gives the soul freedom to reject Him, freedom to choose what the soul wants. If the soul choos­ es “not God,” and chooses something other than God, God respects that choice. Yet He is wounded as well by human sinfulness. The need for atonement is a key presupposition of Faustina’s Diary. Jesus reveals to her that He is pleased by prayers of atonement, saying to her: “The prayer o f a humble and loving soul disarms the anger o f my Father” (320). The figure o f “victim soul” then is a kind of light­ ning rod for the wrath of God, directing it to itself and away from sin­ ners. Prayer can save souls from hell: one Friday she requests Jesus that all souls, even the greatest sinners, who die that day may escape the fire o f hell; Jesus accedes, asking her to “unite yourself continually with my agonizing Heart and make reparation to my justice” (873). Judgment figures largely in Faustina’s concern about the Second Coming, a day o f justice and wrath. Indeed, her message is explicit that these are the times o f Mercy, an invitation to repentance and so to mercy - for there will follow a time o f wrath, the day o f judgment, and if one has not turned to God’s Mercy when first offered, there remains justice. Interestingly, in light both of nineteenth century Polish Messianism and the subsequent Nazi and Soviet genocidal invasions, Poland is sin­