Jesus, Mercy Incarnate

Introduction This book of essays on devotion to Jesus Christ brings together the texts of several public lectures delivered at the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Massachusetts in 1998 and 1999, as part of the work of the John Paul II Institute of Divine Mercy. Thus, each one of these essays is a complete unit in itself, and the three together make a “triptych” of meditations—on the Infancy, on the Passion, and on the Sacred Heart of Jesus—as viewed from the per- spective of the teachings of St. Faustina Kowalska, whom Pope John Paul II has called “the great apostle of Divine Mercy in our time.” The common thread that unites these essays is the conviction that each of the mysteries of Jesus Christ clearly manifests God’s merciful love for the human race, and that if we listen deeply to the way St. Faustina and the saints understood and responded to these mysteries, then we shall be better able to do so ourselves. However, it is important to be clear from the outset that this book is not about St. Faustina exclusively. My purpose in writ- ing is not only to exhibit St. Faustina’s devotion to Jesus Christ, but to show how her teachings both renew and amplify the teachings of some of the greatest saints and doctors of the Church, down through the ages. As such, this is also a highly personal book. No one could be qualified to compare the teachings of St. Faustina with those of all of the great spiritual masters of the Catholic tradition. Such a task would take many lifetimes! The writers I chose to draw upon in this study, therefore, could only be those with whom I ammost familiar myself, and to whom I am most indebted in my own struggle to follow Jesus Christ. In particular, the reader will find that in addition to St. Faustina, I have leaned heavily upon the writings of St. Alphonsus Liguori and St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, as well as upon Sacred Heart mystics such as Bl. Dina Bélanger and Sr. Josefa Menendez. At times, I have also drawn