All through salvation history, Almighty God reveals himself to mankind. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve knew him, knew his love, knew his friendship and experienced him in a unique way. Throughout the Old Testament, we read about Yahweh, “he who is.” This name is used approximately six thousand times. Then we read the amazing story of Moses and his experiences with God. One day Moses asks to see God’s glory and Almighty God bends over backwards to make this possible. (Exodus 33.) When the Lord passes by Moses whom he has placed in the cleft of the rock, Almighty God exclaims, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious!” The first word that God uses to describe himself, is “merciful.”
Fast forward to February 22, 1931 and we find another person who has been having incredible experiences of the Lord. Sr. Maria Faustina on this day was retiring to her room in a convent of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy when the Merciful Lord came to her and through her to mankind. And the world would never be the same.
Helena Kowalska was born on August 25, 1905. Seven years later she heard an interior voice for the first time, a voice she would hear throughout the rest of her life. At age nineteen, while at a dance in Lodz with her sister and while dancing with a young man, she suddenly saw Jesus standing before her covered with wounds. “How long shall I put up with you and how long will you keep putting Me off?” Helen immediately left the dance and ran to cathedral. It would be the first of many steps she would take to fulfilling her vocation as a religious and as the secretary of Mercy, as Our Lord would call her.