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What Did St. Faustina Learn in Front of the Blessed Sacrament?
There’s a Polish proverb that goes: Z kim sie zadajesz takim sie stajesz — “You become the one you befriend.”
When St. Faustina knelt in front of the tabernacle, she prayed fervently, gazing radiantly at the altar. Jesus in the Eucharist was to her a living person with whom she wanted to talk at every moment. All the basic forms of prayer — adoration, petition, intercession, and thanksgiving — were part of those visits.
I wrote this book to help you, and encourage you, to pray and adore with St. Faustina. She wept in front of Our Lord in the Eucharist, interceded for others, shared her joys with Him, and acknowledged her weaknesses. She obtained self-knowledge, asked for healing, adored, loved, listened, thanked, and rested in Him.
As St. Faustina’s soul united with Jesus, the fruit of her adoration was an image of Divine Mercy and a deeper and deeper relationship with the living Host. It gave her nourishment to confront her many challenges, as from that source sprang a fountain of love for all.
St. Faustina had a peace that radiated to all. She offered faith, hope, and charity — and love, compassion, and healing, as she went about doing good, as she left the chapel and went back to the world, herself becoming a “living host.”
[Jesus said to her:] “I delight in you as in a living host; let nothing terrify you; I am with you.” (923)
St. Faustina immersed herself in the fire of His love and the abyss of His mercy, and she came to know herself and her God. It was adoration that called her forth to go out and help others, and adoration empowered her to share Jesus’ compassion to everyone she encountered.
Jesus was her teacher. He taught her to treat trials as a positive opportunity to learn love of neighbor. She had grudges but she took them to Jesus, and He erased the memory from her soul, transforming it into overwhelming kindness and concern for others. Simply put, He taught her not to judge others.
This is how she became holy, how she became a saint.
What Can You Learn by Adoration?
Just as He patiently waited for St. Faustina, Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament waits for you. Just as she grew more like Him, so can you. You can become a “living host.” You can come to better know yourself and your God, and apply that knowledge, that truth, in all facets of your life.
You can become a saint.
What Is Adoration?
Here’s how the Catechism explains it:
Adoration is the first attitude of man acknowledging that he is a creature before his Creator. It exalts the greatness of the Lord who made us and the almighty power of the Savior who sets us free from evil. Adoration is homage of the spirit to the “King of Glory,” respectful silence in the presence of the “ever greater” God. Adoration of the thrice-holy and sovereign God of love blends with humility and gives assurance to our supplications. (CCC 2628)
What Is Eucharistic Adoration?
Again to the Catechism:
It is highly fitting that Christ should have wanted to remain present to his Church in this unique way. Since Christ was about to take his departure from his own in his visible form, he wanted to give us his sacramental presence; since he was about to offer himself on the cross to save us, he wanted us to have the memorial of the love with which he loved us “to the end,” even to the giving of his life. In his Eucharistic presence he remains mysteriously in our midst as the one who loved us and gave himself up for us, and he remains under signs that express and communicate this love:
The Church and the world have a great need for Eucharistic worship. Jesus awaits us in this sacrament of love. Let us not refuse the time to go to meet him in adoration, in contemplation full of faith, and open to making amends for the serious offenses and crimes of the world. Let our adoration never cease. (CCC 1380, quoting St. John Paul II’s apostolic letter Dominicae Cenae, on the mystery and worship of the Eucharist)
How Is St. Faustina Prayer Book for Adoration Designed to Help You Adore God?
Like St. Faustina, sometimes you’ll be able to adore God before the Blessed Sacrament and, at other times, at home or another place when you’re unable to visit a church or chapel.
How did Faustina do it? That’s what her diary is all about. It’s what this book is all about. Here you’ll find the themes, the devotions, and the prayers that she returned to time and again.
In the sections of this prayer book, let St. Faustina draw you nearer to the Lord in the Real Presence with her reflections and prayers. In several chapters, she surrounds you with Mary, the angels, the saints, and the holy souls, as you come before the tabernacle in adoration. In other sections, St. Faustina models for your spiritual adoration at home, private devotion after Communion, and the powerful prayer of silence. And in still other places, she leads you to the cross and helps you to worship the Crucified Lord.
Let this wonderful saint be your spiritual companion in your times of adoration.
I. Adoration of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament
My soul thirsts for God,for the living God.
When shall I come and beholdthe face of God?
— Psalm 42:2
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.
— 1 Corinthians 13:12
Gazing on Jesus with St. Faustina
St. Faustina’s description of one part of her time spent in adoration shows a relationship with Christ that was profoundly simple but deeply intimate. It was the look — the gaze — of love.
Some six decades after her death in 1938, the Catechism of the Catholic Church named and explained that way of “looking”: “Contemplation is a gaze of faith, fixed on Jesus” (CCC 2715, emphasis in original).
“I Look at Him and He Looks at Me”
“This is what a certain peasant of Ars in the time of his holy curé [St. John Vianney] used to say while praying before the tabernacle. This focus on Jesus is a renunciation of self. His gaze purifies our heart; the light of the countenance of Jesus illumines the eyes of our heart and teaches us to see everything in the light of his truth and his compassion for all men. Contemplation also turns its gaze on the mysteries of the life of Christ. Thus it learns the ‘interior knowledge of our Lord,’ the more to love him and follow him.” (CCC 2715)
Once Jesus said to me, My gaze from this [Divine Mercy] image is like My gaze from the cross. (326)
Now I see only dimly, Lord, but because of Your Divine Mercy the time will come when I see you face-to-face.
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