Historia obrazu i Sanktuarium Miłosierdzia Bożego w Stockbridge (USA)

Abstract

On the 22nd of February 1931, Christ appeared to Sister Faustyna Kowalska in her Congregation’s convent in Płock, Poland. He directed her to paint an image after the pattern of the vision, signed with the words: “Jesus, I trust in You.” The Sister’s spiritual mentor in the city of Vilnius, now in Lithuania, the Reverend Michael Sopoćko, commissioned an artist he knew, Eugene Kazimirowski, to paint the image requested by Jesus. It was completed by July 1934. In response to another injunction of Jesus to Sister Faustyna, that a Feast of The Divine Mercy be established in the Church, Fr. Sopocko had prepared a treatise on our Lord’s message and request with the aim of encouraging bishops and academicians to petition Church authorities to fulfill the Lord’s desire. Shortly after the beginning of the II World War he learned that a Polish priest, Rev. Józef Jarzębowski, happened to be passing through Vilnius with the intent of ultimately reaching America. Fr. Sopoćko approached him to take the treatise and make it known there. As he journeyed via Moscow, Siberia, Vladivostok and Japan, finally arriving in the United States, Fr. Jarzębowski managed to avoid the confiscation of the treatise by Communist inspectors, who particularly searched for religious objects. During a short sojourn at the Polish Seminary in Orchard Lake, Michigan, he inspired Rev. Fr. Jasiński, a doctor and professor of theology there, to fund the publication of the treatise, which was then sent to all the members of the American hierarchy and rectors of Catholic universities by his confrères, the Marian Fathers in Washington, D.C. With the help of Felician Sisters in Michigan and Connecticut along with his confrères, Divine Mercy Chaplet and Novena prayers were printed and propagated alongside holy cards of the Vilnius Image of Christ. Already in 1944, hardly two-and-a-half years after the saintly passing of Sr. Faustina, a Divine Mercy Apostolate was instituted by the Marians in Stockbridge, MA, where Divine Mercy images, prayer cards, pamphlets and books on the subject were published and from there quickly spread throughout the country and to almost all the continents. In 1959, the Sacred Congregation of The Holy Office prohibited the spreading of the message and devotion to The Divine Mercy as revealed to Sr. Faustyna, due to inaccurate translations in some places of excerpts from her writings. At bishops’ discretion, Divine Mercy Images were to be removed from churches and literature suppressed. Fr. Sopocko and the Marian Fathers were allowed to write and preach about the Mercy of God, but only based on Sacred Scripture, the Liturgy and accepted theology. Meanwhile, already in 1950, the Marians were urged by members of their Association of Helpers together with the many devotees and supporters of The Divine Mercy Message to build a larger church in thanksgiving for the numerous graces attributed to the Merciful Lord. Still considered to be the chapel of the contingent novitiate house, the building was completed in May 1960 and formally dedicated by the Bishop of Springfield, MA, who allowed the D.M.Image to remain enshrined there. Of the two side chapels of the shrine, one is dedicated to St. Faustyna Kowalska and her spiritual director, BI. Michael Sopocko. It houses their first-class relics and a bas-relief representation of a Eucharistic vision associated with the Divine Mercy Image granted by Jesus to St. Faustina. As predicted by the saintly Sister, the prohibition on the spreading of the devotion to The Divine Mercy was lifted under pope Paul VI on April 15, 1978. On October 16 of the same year, the Cardinal Archbishop of Cracow, Poland, was elected to the papacy. He had been instrumental in clarifying the difficulties connected with Sr. Faustina’s mission. The Marians resumed their Divine Mercy Apostolate, and in 1996, the Conference of Catholic Bishops in the USA designated the Stockbridge chapel as the “National Shrine of Divine Mercy.” Sister Faustyna Kowalska was beatified on the 18th of April, 1993, and canonized on the 30th of April, 2000 — both on the Feast of The Divine Mercy, as well as thanks to the miracles granted through the intercession of Sister Faustyna to two Americans, a woman and a priest. Thousands of pilgrims visit the National Shrine each year either out of personal devotion or as pilgrims joining in the celebration of holy, ethnic or specialized days. The “Hour of Great Mercy” is observed daily in the shrine at 3:00 p.m. together with Eucharistic adoration and the sacrament of Reconciliation. Repeating a declaration that his “Venerable Predecessor” made when he inaugurated the large Shrine of Divine Mercy in Poland in 2002, Pope Benedict XVI stated: “Apart from the mercy of God there is no source of hope for mankind.”