Pope marks 90 years since Jesus revealed Divine Mercy message to Faustina

Let us open our heart, saying with faith, “Jesus, I trust in You”Pope Francis on February 21, after praying the midday Angelus, noted the 90th anniversary of the revelations of Christ to St. Faustina, the Polish nun who was given the now famous image of Jesus that reflects his Divine Mercy, with the prayer, “Jesus, I trust in you.”

The pope said this revelation is an affirmation of the message of the Gospel.

He said:

In particular, I greet the Polish faithful who are here in front [of St. Peter’s Square]. Today my thoughts go to the Shrine of Płock in Poland, where ninety years ago the Lord Jesus manifested Himself to Saint Faustina Kowalska, entrusting a special message of divine mercy to her.

Through Saint John Paul II this message reached the entire world, and it is none other than the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who died and rose again, and who gives us His Father’s mercy. Let us open our heart, saying with faith, “Jesus, I trust in You.”

What she saw

Jesus revealed the image of Divine Mercy to St. Faustina, in a vision that occurred in her cell in the convent of Płock, on February 22, 1931.

“In the evening, when I was in my cell, I saw the Lord Jesus clothed in a white garment,” she writes in her Diary. “One hand was raised in the gesture of blessing, the other was touching the garment at the chest. From beneath the garment, slightly drawn aside at the chest, there were emanating two large rays, one red and the other pale. (…) After a while Jesus said to me, ‘Paint an image according to the pattern you see, with the signature: Jesus, I trust in You'”(Diary, 47).

The artist Eugene Kazimirowski, who received instructions provided personally by Sister Faustina, painted the first depiction of Divine Mercy in 1934 in Vilnius. However, it is the image of Lagiewniki, Krakow, painted by Adolf Hyla, which has gained fame throughout the world. (See the images in the article below, “2 visions of Divine Mercy.”)