Pillars of Fire In My Soul

Essential Features of the Devotion to The Divine Mercy The Divine Mercy messages and devotion were recorded at Christ’s command and passed on to the world in the Diary of Sister Helen Faustina Kowalska, a member of the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, in Poland. There is not the slightest doubt that Divine Mercy should be the object of our adoration. When we speak of religious worship or adoration, we must always differentiate the funda- mental or proper object from the object which is material, inessential and relative . 1 The principle object of any type of honor, whether religious or secular, can only be a person. The object of religious worship is always the personal God. The personal God, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, is the proper, that is the essential object of the supreme act of religious worship. 2 God alone is the object. We are permitted to adore only God Himself with acts of religious adoration. However, when our acts of worship are addressed to some created being, this veneration is not supreme worship, but only the result and expression of the supreme act of worship which we desire to direct to God Himself by venerating His created images. If we, for example, surround portraits, photographs, and other likenesses of our dear ones with signs of veneration, these representations are not in themselves the actual object of our veneration, but the persons they represent who are dear to us are the object. It is much the same with the supreme act of worship. Through sanctifying grace, every saint is a supernatural image of God, One-in-the Holy Trinity. 3 Since we are honoring God, this honor must also embrace all His images and in them find its expression, its outward manifes- Essential Features of the Devotion to The Divine Mercy 93