A New Friend Named Faustina
“I have heard the Lord Jesus say that, on the Day of Judgment, He will be judging the world only in terms of mercy, because God is all Mercy. And by acting out of mercy, or neglecting mercy, a person determines their own judgment.”
— St. Faustina to Sister Damiana Ziolek
Are you ready to die today? Am I?
Are we fully prepared to stand before our all-pure, all-holy God?
Even if we’re in a state of grace, is it possible our snap judgment of others, selfishness, recurrent sins, pride, and long-held grudges have become such a part of our daily life that we’re blind to them? Is the habit of overlooking them, dismissing them, or explaining them away so deeply engrained in us that we quickly and easily point out the speck in our neighbor’s eye but fail to see the beam in our own?
Sometimes our love isn’t spotless. Our ingratitude, tepid faith, lack of forgiveness, and self-centeredness hobble our relationship with God right here, right now. And on the day we die, they can stand between us and heaven.
We don’t always get rid of these faults and shortcomings — these sins — during our time on earth. We may pass away with imperfections we didn’t conquer … or never tried to. And that’s why the God who is love has given us purgatory.
That’s why He offers us both the place to restore our souls and the means for that to happen.
The souls in purgatory are human beings that were weaved into the fabric of our daily lives: our families, friends, benefactors. These souls cry day and night from the depths of purgatory. They long and pine for God, their Beloved. Their tears are endless. Their suffering never ceases. They’re helpless.
Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI put it this way: “[Purgatory] strips off from one person what is unbearable and from another the inability to bear certain things, so that in each of them a pure heart is revealed, and we can see that we all belong together in one enormous symphony of being” (God and the World, p.130).
The Catholic Church’s teaching on purgatory is all about the abundance of God’s mercy, love, and grace. Purgatory heals our souls of sinfulness so that we can be united with God in heaven. More than that, even now, today, God invites us to play a role in this masterpiece of His mercy. While still on earth, we can help those who are in purgatory.
Just as Jesus asked St. Faustina to cooperate in His plan of redemption — to include in her spiritual life acts of charity toward the living and the dead — He asks that of you. And of me.
You may be familiar with St. Faustina and the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, but what you may not know is how mercy and the needs of the souls in purgatory were intertwined throughout her life.
On the day of her final religious vows, one of St. Faustina’s requests to Jesus was to free all those souls. It was that important to her, that central to her understanding of, and teaching of, God’s mercy.
The purpose of this book is to share with you how we can help ourselves avoid purgatory and, at the same time, come to the aid of the suffering souls there. To show you how we can speed them home to the heavenly Father. To point out that we’re on a mercy mission — with St. Faustina — to free them!
To help you become an “Apostle of Purgatory,” we’ll cover the seven major pillars God provides for us to relieve and release the suffering souls: doing the will of God in all things, the Mass, Scripture, the Rosary, Eucharistic Adoration, the Stations of the Cross, and the Chaplet of Divine Mercy.
Throughout this book, selected passages have been taken from the Diary of St. Faustina Kowalska. Those writings have had a powerful effect on me. I was overwhelmed by the love God has for us, and again reminded that we’re made in His image and likeness.
On a personal level, reading St. Faustina’s words has been like discovering a wonderful new friend, one who’s so approachable, warm, and caring. At the same time, her Diary reveals that she, too, had her share of suffering. Hers was not a charmed life … but a blessed one.
Since 1999, this is my ninth book on purgatory and the holy souls. I’ve given so many talks and interviews there are people who sometimes refer to me as “The Purgatory Lady.” But I’ll tell you something: St. Faustina has taught me even more about purgatory — and God’s love and mercy — and I’m so very grateful to her for that.
She’s ready to help you learn more, too. She’s inviting you to join her in praying for those holy souls.
May your heart be filled with love of the holy souls in purgatory. May they walk with you in a special way all the days of your life and, in time, welcome you into paradise.
You, and the souls of your dearly departed, are in my prayers.
— Susan
Part I
The Essence of Divine Mercy
When I received Holy Communion, I said to Him, “Jesus, I thought about You so many times last night,” and Jesus answered me, And I thought of you before I called you into being. “Jesus, in what way were You thinking about me?” In terms of admitting you to My eternal happiness. After these words, my soul was flooded with the love of God. I could not stop marveling at how much God loves us. (1292)
If I call creatures into being — that is the abyss of My mercy. (85)
The Spirituality of St. Faustina Kowalska
Today St. Maria Faustina Kowalska is known for her childlike trust in God and as His “Apostle of Mercy” because in the 1930s Our Lord asked her to proclaim His message of mercy to the whole world. And while Sister Faustina never left a series of convents and health-care facilities in pre-World War II Poland — devoting her life to sacrifice, suffering, obedience, and good works for the needy — proclaim it she did.
Following her death of multiple tuberculosis in 1938 at the age of thirty-three, her mission continued through the personal diary she had maintained to record the words of her heavenly visitors — including Jesus and Mary — and, time and again, to return to their message that at the core of God’s love is His mercy.
Now Divine Mercy Sunday is celebrated worldwide on the Second Sunday of Easter. The Chaplet of Divine Mercy is prayed by countless people daily at three in the afternoon, and the Divine Mercy image of Jesus hangs in churches, chapels, and homes around the globe.
What is the message, this spirituality, that has swept through the Catholic Church and into millions of hearts over the last seven-plus decades? It’s this: The essence of Divine Mercy is twofold. First, to totally trust in Christ’s mercy. And second, to show mercy to others, acting as a vessel of God’s mercy.
St. Faustina wanted God’s greatest attribute, His unfathomable mercy, to pass through her heart and to her neighbor. She wrote, saying to God:
[E]ach of Your saints reflects one of Your virtues; I desire to reflect Your compassionate heart, full of mercy; I want to glorify it. Let Your mercy, O Jesus, be impressed upon my heart and soul like a seal, and this will be my badge in
