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Pope John Paul II and Divine Mercy

“I considered this message my special task. Providence has assigned it to me in the present situation of man, the Church, and the world” (Bl. Pope John Paul II November 22, 1981)

The knowledge of St. Faustina and the revelations bestowed on her coming from Jesus became known to Pope John Paul II early in 1940. It was at the time when he was studying for the priesthood secretly, in a seminary in Krakow.

The first he heard of these revelations was from another seminarian Andrew Deskur who later became a Cardinal also. Andrew told him about Saint Faustina Kowalska and the message of Divine Mercy she claimed she had received from the Lord.

It was during the time that she received the messages from Our Lord, that Karol Wojtyla was forcibly working under the Nazi occupation forces in the factory, which was in view of the convent and can still be seen today from the convent cemetery where St. Faustina was first buried.

Karol Wojtyla visited the convent frequently, first as a priest and then as a bishop. He went there often to pray and in later years gave retreats there as well. It was Karol Wojtyla, as Archbishop of Krakow, who after St. Faustina’s death, was the first to consider bringing St. Faustina’s name before the Congregation for the Causes of Saints for consideration as a figure worthy of being put forward for beatification.

During the Second Vatican Council, he approached Cardinal Ottaviani about the desire of the faithful in Poland to have Saint Faustina raised to the honours of the altar. Cardinal Ottaviani told him the first step to take was to get together the testimonies of all those who knew her, while they were still alive.

Archbishop Karol Wojtyla delegated his auxiliary bishop, Julian Groblicki, to gather the information in order to begin the Informative Process of the life and virtues of Saint Faustina. In September 1967 the process was completed, and in January 1968, the Process of Beatification was inaugurated. Because of the positive outcome of the informative Process, inquiries from many places, especially from Poland and, in particular, from Archbishop Wojtyla, were sent to the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. They asked whether the prohibitions of the 1959 Notification were still in effect. In response to these inquiries, the Sacred Congregation issued a new “Notification” dated April 15, 1978, which stated, “This Sacred Congregation, having now in possession the many original documents, unknown in 1959 and having taken into consideration the profoundly changed circumstances and having taken into account the opinion of many Polish Ordinaries, it now declares no longer binding the prohibitions contained in the quoted “Notification”.

On the first Sunday of Advent, November 30, 1980, Pope John Paul II published his second encyclical letter “Dives in Misericordia” (Rich in Mercy) , in which he describes the mercy of God as the presence of a love which is greater than any evil, greater than any sin and greater than death. In this encyclical he calls on the Church to devote itself to pleading for God’s mercy for the whole world.

Read more at DivineMercy.org

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