The Lord is Kind and Merciful!

Author: Testimony,
Love One Another! 18/2011 → Divine mercy

The year 2008 marked a watershed event in the history of St. Florian’s parish, in Hamtramck, USA. It was our one-hundred-year anniversary.

Gathering and worshiping at St. Florian’s are the descendants of Poles who founded this parish a hundred years ago, those who came to America in the 1980’s during the period of martial law in Poland, and those who followed at the turn of the century. The care of this parish is entrusted to the Society of Christ Fathers. In a spirit of gratitude for our one hundred years of existence as a faith community, we decided to build a Divine Mercy chapel in this beautiful neo-Gothic church.

When the intention to build the chapel was announced, a certain parishioner disclosed to the pastor that he had in his possession an old roll of canvas bearing the image of the Merciful Jesus. How had he come by it? It turns out that the pastor of another Polish parish in Detroit decided to clear the attic of his rectory. He told the cleaner — who happened to be the parishioner in question — to throw everything out. Among the articles destined for the trash heap was a roll of canvas. Intrigued by this find, the parishioner unrolled the fabric and discovered a beautiful image of the Merciful Jesus bearing the subscription, “Jesus, I Trust in You!” With the pastor’s permission he kept the image for himself, although he never had it framed. When the Divine Mercy chapel was completed at St. Florian’s, the parishioner donated the canvas to the parish.

The picture had been painted in Poland during the 1950s and then brought to the United States. At that time Rome had not yet granted permission for the public veneration of this image. Almost half a century had to elapse before this image of the Merciful Jesus could see the light of day.

The new chapel at St Florian’s was duly consecrated in 2008, on Sunday the Feast of Divine Mercy. Since then the faithful have been gathering before the image to request graces for themselves, their loved ones, and the whole world. We now have an active Divine Mercy prayer group numbering some fifty Polish and English-speaking members. Those who are able come to the chapel on Fridays to adore the Blessed Sacrament and recite the chaplet of Divine Mercy. In addition, the Divine Mercy group gathers there every first Sunday of the month to pray and receive the monthly intentions.

One of the first of these intentions was for those suffering from cancer. We had at St. Florian’s a man who was in a critical state. He lay in a hospital ward whose inmates rarely walked out of alive — and this by God’s grace alone. His wife, a member of the Divine Mercy group, informed him that the whole community was praying for him. She asked him to recite the chaplet as well as he could at 3 p.m.

That evening the doctor entered the ward to examine the patient. He observed a radical improvement in the state of the man’s health. “What have you done?” he asked him in surprise. “You must have done something,” the patient replied, to which the doctor replied, pointing upward, “It’s He who has done it.”

A few hours later they transferred the man to another ward, and a few days later they released him from the hospital. Today the man enjoys good health and is once more an active member of the parish. We are very grateful to the Merciful Jesus for demonstrating the power of His grace in the lives of St. Florian’s parishioners.

Fr. M. Frankowski SChr

Write, speak of My mercy…

So dear readers! Jesus asks you to write down and send LOA your testimonies of the graces and healings you have received from entrusting yourselves to the Mercy of God

(St. Faustina’s Diary, 1448)

The above article was published with permission from "Love One Another!" in August 2016.

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