Jesus, Mercy Incarnate

We find a similar teaching in the meditations of St. Alphonsus, especially in one entitled “The Eternal Word becomes Little:” If our Redeemer had come to be feared and respected by men, he would have come as a full-grown man and with royal dignity; but because he came to gain our love, he chose to come and to show himself as an infant and the poorest of infants, born in a cold stable between two animals, laid in a manger on straw, without clothing or fire to warm his shiver- ing limbs: “Thus would he be born, who willed to be loved and not feared.” 14 Such is the wisdom and power of The Divine Mercy: He not only showed us the way of spiritual childhood Himself, as a little child — the way of trust and absolute surrender — He also gave us the confidence to trust in Him, by coming among us in a form in which we could never fear Him. He came to us as Mercy Incarnate: the merciful Christ Child. 4. The Divine Child in the Holy Eucharist To be sure, there is another way in which the saving power of God is mightily displayed inweakness. In themiracle of His divine presence in the Blessed Sacrament, in the consecrated Host, the Son of God came to be with us in the littlest, most helpless, and yet most spiritually potent way possible. 15 St. Faustina teaches us about this in her Diary . She discerned an intimate connection between the loving presence of the Christ Child, and the real presence of Christ in the Sacrament. Almost invariably, the Eucharist is where she encountered the divine Infant. In diary entry no. 846, for example, she relates the story of one of these Eucharistic visions: Midnight Mass. During Mass, God’s presence pierced me through and through. A moment before the Elevation I saw the Mother of God and the Infant Jesus and the good Old Man [St. Joseph]. The Most Holy Mother spoke these words to me: “My daughter Faustina, take this most precious Treasure,” and she gave me the Infant Jesus. 29 Saint Faustina and Devotion to the Christ Child