About the ORIGINAL IMAGE OF DIVINE MERCY - painted by Eugene Kazimierowski in 1934
Fr. Michael Sopocko was rector of St. Michael’s church and had kept the image exposed in the church In August of 1948 the Soviet government closed the church and removed all the contents of St.Michael’s to the Dominican convent nearby.
About 8 years later, in 1956, the Image of the Divine Mercy was transferred from Vilnius to a church in Belarus, near the Russian border in the village of Nova Ruda. In 1970 the Soviet authorities closed this church and removed the entire contents out of the church but by some extraordinary miracle they overlooked the Image of Divine Mercy. Thus for many years this valuable painting remained in this closed and abandoned church.
It was only in 1986 after thirty years in this little abandoned church in Nova Ruda, that the Image was installed. Much has happened since then. This is an Image from which Our Lord promised great graces would flow to a world so much in need. Our Lord wants His Mercy to flow through to us all.
The Divine Mercy Image of JESUS is not another ordinary holy picture of JESUS. It is an Image JESUS Himself revealed to St Faustina and commanded her to have it painted.
JESUS promised many graces to those who venerate this Image and wanted it made known throughout the whole world.
On February 22, 1931, St Faustina wrote (Diary Notes 47-48)
”In the evening, when I was in my cell, I saw the Lord Jesus clothed in a white garment. One hand [was] raised in the gesture of blessing; the other was touching the garment at the breast. From beneath the garment, slightly drawn aside at the breast, there were emanating two large rays, one red, the other pale. In silence I kept my gaze fixed on the Lord; my soul was struck with awe, but also with great joy.
After a while, Jesus said to me, “Paint an image according to the pattern you see, with the signature: Jesus, I trust in You. I desire that this image be venerated, first in your chapel, and [then] throughout the world. I promise that the soul that will venerate this image will not perish. I also promise victory over [its] enemies already here on earth, especially at the hour of death. I Myself will defend it as My own glory”
JESUS also told her: “I am offering people a vessel with which they are to keep coming for graces to the fountain of mercy… That vessel is this image with the signature: ‘Jesus, I trust in You,’ ” (Diary Note 327).
Sometime later, St Faustina’s Confessor told her to ask the Lord Jesus the meaning of the two rays in the image,(Diary Note 77)
St Faustina wrote in her note book, “During prayer I heard these words within me: The two rays denote Blood and Water….
The pale ray stands for the Water which makes souls righteous…
The red ray stands for the Blood which is the life of souls...
These two rays issued forth from the very depths of My tender mercy when My agonized Heart was opened by a lance on the Cross."
On another occasion, JESUS told St Faustina: “My gaze from this image is like My gaze from the cross. … Mankind will not have peace until it turns with trust to My Mercy." (Diary Note 299)
Sometime before the first Sunday after Easter – April 1935. JESUS had told her
“I desire that this image be displayed in public on the first Sunday after Easter….. That Sunday is the Feast of Mercy….. Through the Word Incarnate I make known the bottomless depth of My mercy."
St Faustina later wrote in her Diary, ‘Strangely, all things came about just as the Lord had requested. In fact, it was on the first Sunday after Easter [April, 1935] that the image was publicly honored by crowds of people for the first time.
For three days it was exposed and received public veneration…. during these three days, the Redemption of the World was being celebrated, marking the nineteen hundred years that have passed since the Passion of our Savior. I see now that the work of Redemption is bound up with the work of mercy requested by the Lord.’
On another occasion, JESUS told her : “Not in the beauty of the color, nor of the brush lies the greatness of this image, but in My grace.”
We live in one of the darkest ages of great sin, wickedness, cruelty, selfishness and great rejection of the love and the law of God and JESUS has revealed the image of Divine Mercy that bore the wounds He revealed to His Apostles in the Cenacle – Apostles who were fearful of persecution and rejection and who were weak in their faith. “If you do not believe my words, at least believe my wounds” (Diary Note 379). He revealed Himself with the signs of His passion – an act of the immense mercy of God, but also one that manifests resurrection and triumph over evil.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE IMAGE
On March 2, 2016 Sr. Gaudia Skass of the Congregations of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy was the guest speaker at St. Mary's Church in New Haven.
She spoke about the life of St. Faustina and the Divine Mercy message. (Click on the video below)
It means that with great respect and reverence, we honour and give prayerful respect and regard to JESUS portrayed in the painted Image of DIVINE MERCY. This is not in contrary to the First Commandment; “You shall have no other gods before ME.”
So everytime, you pass by this beautiful Image of JESUS, He is looking right into your soul, it is our opportunity to thank JESUS by a gesture of a bow, making the sign of the Cross or even encourage a little child to blow a kiss to JESUS!