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Divine Mercy in my Soul PDF
File A. Diary BM. Diary (part)
FOOTNOTE
1 O Eternal Love, You command Your Sacred
Image [1] to be painted (Diary 1) 1-50
[1] On February 22, 1931, while staying in Plock, Sister Faustina received Jesus’
order to paint a picture according to a model that was shown to her (cf. Diary 47)
The Servant of
God tried to fulfill the command, but not knowing painting techniques, she was
unable to do it by herself. Still, she did not give up the idea. She kept
returning to it and sought help from other sisters and from her confessors.
A few years later
her superiors sent her to Vilnius (Wilno), where her confessor, Rev. Prof. Michael Sopocko, interested to see what the picture of a
hitherto unknown theme would look like, asked the painter Eugene Kazimierowski to paint the picture
according to Sister Faustina’s
directions. The picture was finished in June 1934 and
hung in the corridor of the Bernardine Sisters’
convent near St. Michael’s Church in
Vilnius, where Father Sopocko was
rector.
In 1935, during the celebrations
concluding the Jubilee Year of the
Redemption of the World, the image
of The Divine Mercy was transferred to the Ostra Brama [“Eastern Gate” to the city of
Vilnius] and placed in a high window so that it could be seen from far away. It
was there from April
26 to April 28. By permission of Archbishop
Romuald Jalbrzykowski,
on April 4, 1937, the image was blessed and placed in the St. Michael’s Church in Vilnius.
In 1944, a committee of experts was
formed, at the order of Archbishop Jalbrzykowski, to evaluate the image. The experts’ opinion
was the the image of The Divine Mercy, painted by E.
Kazimierowski was artistically executed and an
important contribution to contemporary religious art.
There are
several characteristic features of this original image. Against a plain
background, Christ is shown walking,
with a narrow halo around His head, and his eyes
slightly downcast, as if he were looking from above at the spectators. His right hand is raised in a gesture of blessing; while his left hand is opening the robe at His
Heart (not shown), from which two rays
of light issue, a pale one to
the viewer’s right, a red one to the
left. The light of these rays shines
through the hands and the robe.
In 1943, in Lwow,
at the request of the Sisters of Our
Lady of Mercy, Stanley Batowski painted another image, which was placed in a aside altar of the community chapel at No. 3/9 Zytnia street in Warsaw.
During the Warsaw uprising, this chapel (and with it the image) was burned.
Batowski’s image was very
much liked by everyone. Encouraged by this, the Superior General of the
Community of the Sisters of Our Lady of
Mercy asked Batowski
to paint another one for the house in Cracow,
where the new form of devotion to The Divine Mercy was already expanding. The
image was painted and sent to Cracow
on October 6, 1943.
In the
meantime, the superior of the Cracow
house had been approached by the
painter Adolf Hyla,
who offered to paint some sort of picture for the sisters’ chapel as a votive offering for having survived the
war. The superior, Mother Irene Krzyzanowska, after consulting with the senior sisters
and Father Andrasz, S.J., suggested
that Mr. Hyla
should paint the image according to Sister
Faustina’s directions. For that purpose, he was given the description
(taken from Sister Faustina’s Diary)
along with a small copy of the image painted by Eugene Kazimierowski.
The image was
finished in Autumn of 1943 and brought to
the Cracow house. Batowski’s image
arrived at the same time. For this reason a problem arose - which of the images
should be kept n the sisters’ chapel? It was settled
by Cardinal Sapieha,
who by chance happened to be present there. He inspected the two pictures and
said, “Since Hyla
has painted his picture as a votive
offering, that picture should stay in the sisters’ chapel.” He blessed the
picture and ordered that it be hung. To this day the picture remains in the
side altar to the left of the main entrance, in the Chapel of the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of
Mercy at No. 3/9 Wronia Street in Cracow, and is held in reverence as the
image painted under the direction of Sister Faustina Kowalska. People from all
over Poland and from abroad come to this image
of the Merciful Christ to beg for needed graces. There are many votive
offerings, and copies of the image are found all over the world.
S. Batowski’s picture was
placed in the Church of the Divine Mercy
at Smolensk Street in Cracow.
Over the years,
many other painters have painted images of The Divine Mercy, based on either
existing representations or on Sister
Faustina’s diary.
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