Mercy is always a gratuitous act of our heavenly Father

This week we would like to talk about the deep devotion that Visitation Sisters have to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and our mission to spread this love since St Margaret Mary’s apparitions of the Lord. The significance we’d like to focus on is that this has also led many Visitandines to focus on the Divine Mercy devotion and Chaplet.

In the hidden providence of Our Lord and His unfathomable designs, He arranged, through a variety of circumstances, that the original painting of the Divine Mercy image be executed on the premises of the Visitation Nuns Monastery in Vilnius, Lithuania!

This is a new discovery for many Visitandines, but certainly was known and evident at the time. Here is the story as best we can find it and we welcome your research and input for developing a fuller history of this painting.

Visitation Monastery, Vilnius

In the early 1930’s, Blessed Michael Sopocko, a priest and later spiritual director of St. Faustina, who received the revelations of Divine Mercy, was offered a room in the cottage on the Visitation Sisters’ property in Vilnius. Serving as confessor to the community that St. Faustina was a member of, he came to know the Saint and the request of Our Lord to paint a picture of Divine Mercy. In the Visitandines’ cottage, Fr Sopocko lived on the second floor, but on the ground floor the artist Eugeniusz Marcin Kazimirowski lived and it was he who Fr Sopocko commissioned to paint the picture of the Divine Mercy. In fact, St. Faustina was given permission by her Superior, on occasion, to visit with this artist at this studio, so we can suppose she also was on the Visitation Monastery premises.

In what way were the Visitandines involved? At this point we don’t know, other than supposing their heartfelt prayers for their tenants. That they did know Fr. Sopocko is made even more evident by a photo we have of them together.

The whereabouts of this original painting was unknown for many years and its rediscovery and story may be seen in this relatively new film which is making the rounds: http://www.divinemercyfilm.com

But, symbolically, and mystically, there is a spiritual connection between the Devotion to the Sacred Heart and the Divine Mercy and the fact of the first painting’s history in connection with the Visitation only enhances it!

A fascinating way to get insight on this is by reading a novelized version of how the painting came to be executed with the help of the Visitation Nuns. It is on our Visitation Spirit website.

1. Did you know this history of the Divine Mercy image?
2. Do you have any story you would like to share of how the Divine Mercy image has had a significant impact in your life? What moves the progress of the soul from union to unity?
3. If the Gospel message is already about mercy, why do you think there was a need for God to go through such lengths to emphasize His Mercy to the world? And why through a cloistered nun?
4. Consider this quote from Pope Francis’ Apostolic Letter Misericordia et misera: “We need witnesses to hope and true joy if we are to dispel the illusions that promise quick and easy happiness through artificial paradises” (no. 3). What does this have to do with mercy? How can the Divine Mercy image be a sign of hope and joy for us?
5. Read the fictionalized version of how the painting came to be, mentioned above. Why was it so important for the figure to be walking and blessing, according to Sr. Faustina?
6. The full figure of Christ walking was a break with artistic tradition, according to the novel. Is there a difference in the message of our Lord here, compared to the previous icons of Christ sitting on a throne? What does a throne signify, and what does walking signify?

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