The Great Forerunner

 

Speak to the world about My mercy;
let all mankind recognize My unfathomable mercy.
It is a sign for the end times;
after it will come the day of justice.
—Jesus to St. Faustina, Divine Mercy in My Soul, Diary, n. 848 

 

IF the Father is going to restore to the Church the Gift of living in the Divine Will that Adam once possessed, Our Lady received, Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta reclaimed and that we are now being given (O Wonder of wonders) in these last times… then it begins by recovering what we first lost: trust.

 

THE BREEZE OF MERCY

I am deeply moved by the letters many of you sent over the weekend sharing with me your own recognition of the idols in your life. It is clear that the Holy Spirit is moving like a beautiful breeze over the garden of my readers.

When they heard the sound of the Lord God walking about in the garden at the breezy time of the day, the man and his wife hid themselves from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. (Genesis 3:8)

The Good News is that you don’t need to hide from Jesus! While you may feel a surge of shame at the deeper awareness of these idols, you have not taken the Lord by surprise. He not only knows of these idols but sees into the very depths of your soul where sin reigns in ways you may not fully comprehend even now—and yet, He still searches you out with a burning love. How can you be afraid of someone who loves you so much, in spite of your misery? This is the meaning of the words:

I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 8:38-39)

Do not fear what you will lose by smashing your idols, rather, fear what may lose if you don’t! Remember how St. Paul said that “For the sake of the joy that lay before him, [Jesus] endured the cross.” [1]cf. Heb 12:2 The joy, reserved for the Bride of Christ in these last times, is the Gift of Living in the Divine Will, which is a full participation in the life of the Holy Trinity. In brief, 

…the Divine Will was intended by God to be the strength, the prime motion, the support, the nourishment and the life of the human will. Therefore, if we fail to allow the Divine Will to take up its life in our human will, we reject the blessings we received from God at the time of man’s creation… —Our Lady to Luisa Piccarreta, The Virgin Mary in the Kingdom of the Divine Will, Third Edition (with translation by Rev. Joseph Iannuzzi); Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur, Msgr. Francis M. della Cueva S. M., delegate of the Archbishop of Trani, Italy (Feast of Christ the King); from Divine Will Prayer Book, p. 105

In order to reclaim these “blessings” as the final stage of mankind’s redemption, the first step is trusting that God has our total wellbeing at heart…

 

THE GREAT FORERUNNER

Just as John the Baptist was the immediate precursor to both the Incarnation and public ministry of Jesus, so too, the message of Divine Mercy given to us through St. Faustina is the immediate precursor to the coming of the Kingdom of the Divine Will.

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand! (John the Baptist, Matthew 3:2)

Jesus said as much to Faustina:

You will prepare the world for My final coming. —Jesus to St. Faustina, Divine Mercy in My Soul, Diary, n. 429

We need only turn to St. John Paul II in order to understand the significance of these revelations that he considered his “special task”:

Providence has assigned it to me in the present situation of man, the Church and the world. It could be said that precisely this situation assigned that message to me as my task before God.  —November 22, 1981 at the Shrine of Merciful Love in Collevalenza, Italy

While realizing the eschatological significance of the message of Divine Mercy, John Paul II did not interpret this as an immediate precursor to the end of the world, but the end of an era and the dawn of a new:

The hour has come when the message of Divine Mercy is able to fill hearts with hope and to become the spark of a new civilization: the civilization of love.POPE JOHN PAUL II, Homily, August 18th, 2002

This, he said, would be revealed in the new millennium.

…the light of divine mercy, which the Lord in a way wished to return to the world through Sr. Faustina’s charism, will illumine the way for the men and women of the third millennium. —ST. JOHN PAUL II, Homily, April 30th, 2000

 

THE MORNING STAR

Before the sun rises, it is preceded by Venus, what is called the “morning star.” Think of this morning star as the “light of divine mercy” that precedes the light of divine justice when Jesus will come by way of His glorified Spirit to execute justice upon the nations in order that the Kingdom of His Divine Will may reign on earth as it is in Heaven. 

At the end of the Book of Revelation, Jesus takes this mysterious title upon Himself:

Behold, I am coming soon. I bring with me the recompense I will give to each according to his deeds… I am the root and offspring of David, the bright morning star. (Revelation 22:12, 16)

In his discourse on the “end times,” St. Peter writes:

…we possess the prophetic message that is altogether reliable. You will do well to be attentive to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. (2 Peter 1:19)

This is all to say that the coming of Christ’s Kingdom on earth is an interior coming within the hearts of His faithful that begins with receiving Jesus as the King of Mercy (the Morning Star) and culminates in recognizing Him as the King of Justice (the Sun of Justice)—which for the faithful will be a cause of joy and gladness—but for the wicked, a day of gloom and condemnation (see The Day of Justice).

The Church, which comprises the elect, is fittingly styled daybreak or dawn… It will be fully day for her when she shines with the perfect brilliance of interior light. —St. Gregory the Great, Pope; Liturgy of the Hours, Vol III, p. 308  

 

PREPARATION FOR THE DIVINE WILL

St. Faustina’s diary reveals a woman who felt the utter weight of her misery and sin, that is, her own idols. This was precisely why she was chosen, not only to be the secretary of His Mercy, but to prophetically reveal within her person how the path of Mercy prepares the way for the Gift of living in the Divine Will. Faustina became for all of us a living sign of hope that nothing is impossible for God—except, that is, our refusal to trust in Him. 

My child, all your sins have not wounded My Heart as painfully as your present lack of trust does that after so many efforts of My love and mercy, you should still doubt My goodness… I have inscribed your name upon My hand; you are engraved as a deep wound in My Heart. —Jesus to St. Faustina, Divine Mercy in My Soul, Diary, n. 1486, 1485

Oh, how such words melted Faustina’s heart—and have melted my own. How often we Christians think that, because of our sin, Jesus rejects us. On the contrary says Matthew the Poor, “Whoever is poor, hungry, sinful, fallen or ignorant is the guest of Christ.” [2]Matthew the Poor, The Communion of Love, p.93 

The flames of mercy are burning Me—clamoring to be spent; I want to keep pouring them out upon souls; souls just don’t want to believe in My goodness.  —Jesus to St. Faustina, Divine Mercy in My Soul, Diary, n. 177

All Jesus asks is that we trust in His goodness and let go of our sin once and for all. The way is “narrow” and “difficult” precisely because of that primordial wound in our hearts, which was to lose trust in the Divine Will and believe the lie that it leads to some kind of religious slavery as opposed to authentic freedom. Therefore, trust (ie. faith) is the path not only to salvation but sanctification, and in these last times, the path to reacquire the “Sanctity of sanctities” of living in the Divine Will.

The graces of My mercy are drawn by means of one vessel only, and that is—trust. The more a soul trusts, the more it will receive.  —Jesus to St. Faustina, Divine Mercy in My Soul, Diary, n. 1578

In other words, to receive the greatest Gift possible for the Church, we need to have the greatest trust possible—which is to empty ourselves completely of our own will. We see in St. Faustina that this culminates in her receiving the Gift of living in the Divine Will, what she calls a “transconsecration” of her being once she totally abandoned herself to Jesus:

“Do with me as You please. I subject myself to Your will. As of today, Your holy will shall be my nourishment” …Suddenly, when I had consented to the sacrifice with all my heart and all my will, God’s presence pervaded me. My soul became immersed in God and was inundated with such happiness that I cannot put in writing even the smallest part of it. I felt that His Majesty was enveloping me. I was extraordinarily fused with God …And the Lord said to me, You are the delight of My Heart; from today on, every one of your acts, even the very smallest, will be a delight to My eyes, whatever you do. At that moment I felt transconsecrated. My earthly body was the same, but my soul was different; God was now living in it with the totality of His delight. This is not a feeling, but a conscious reality that nothing can obscure.Divine Mercy in My Soul, Diary, n. 136-137

And this is what God wishes to do in the soul’s of Our Lady’s Little Rabble, indeed, the whole Church….

Now, child of my Heart, listen closely to what I, your tender mother, am about to say. Never let your human will act on its own. Be content to die rather than concede one act of life to your own will. Oh, if you will keep your will sacrificed in honour of your Creator, the Divine Will shall take its first step in your soul, and you will feel molded with a heavenly aura, purified and warmed in such a way that you will feel the seeds of your passions disappear, and you will feel yourself placed [by God] within the first steps of the Kingdom of the Divine Will. —Our Lady to Luisa Piccarreta, The Virgin Mary in the Kingdom of the Divine Will, Third Edition (with translation by Rev. Joseph Iannuzzi); Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur, Msgr. Francis M. della Cueva S. M., delegate of the Archbishop of Trani, Italy (Feast of Christ the King); from Divine Will Prayer Book, p. 88

 

 

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RELATED READING

Read how the Divine Mercy message was timed for our days: The Last Effort

 

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Footnotes

Footnotes
1 cf. Heb 12:2
2 Matthew the Poor, The Communion of Love, p.93
Posted in HOME, DIVINE WILL.