Pillars of Fire In My Soul

Sister Helen Faustina Kowalska is consonant with the above mentioned principles of Catholic doctrine, as well as with the fundamental centuries-old, tradition-sanctified forms of religious worship practiced by the Catholic Church. Indeed, lex credenti lex orandi , the rule of faith is at the same time the rule of piety, of prayer. We must inquire, then, as to what constitutes the proper object of the Devotion to the Divine Mercy and what is its relative, material, and secondary object, according to the information conveyed by Sister Helen Faustina Kowalska. For the Divine Mercy, to whom we are to render worship in this devotion, is infinite and inexhaustible. It is, in fact, in its proper meaning as Divine Mercy, God Himself. A question of fundamental importance arises: What concretely is denoted by the term “mercy” in those paragraphs of the Diary of Sister Helen Faustina that treat of the Devotion? As many as eighty-two revelations speak of the Devotion. Over half of them do not explain precisely what the object signified by this term is. However, almost half do give an explanation. In six cases “mercy” is synonymous with love; in four cases, it means the same as compassion; in four cases it denotes good- ness; and finally, in four cases it signifies Jesus Himself. In these revelations mercy simultaneously means love, goodness and compassion. But within the context of the Devotion mercy takes on the Biblical meaning of the word “hesed” from the Old Testament, and of the word “eleos” from the New Testament. Traditional Catholic moral theology treats of the virtue of mercy as a virtue flowing from love of neighbor. Namely, it is that virtue which inclines us to offer assistance to a person suffering from want or misery. This being so, “mercy” in moral theology has a narrower and secondary meaning and is not love itself but love’s result and extension; it is a pars potentialis to the virtue of love. From this we may conclude that the mercy which we wish to honor through this Devotion Essential Features of the Devotion to The Divine Mercy 95