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Divine Mercy in my Soul PDF
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FOOTNOTE
94 When the image was displayed, [94] I saw a sudden movement of the hand of
Jesus, as He made a large sign of the cross
(Diary
416) 401-450
[94] The
image of The Divine Mercy, with two rays, a pale and a red one, painted by
Eugene Kazimierowski in Vilnius. The picture was
displayed for public veneration in the Dawn Gate at the conclusion of the
Jubilee of the Redemption of the World, April 26-28, 1935 (See Diary no. 419 and footnote [1]).
[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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