Showing posts with label Saints of Divine Mercy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saints of Divine Mercy. Show all posts

Thursday, April 05, 2018

Saints of Divine Mercy

Lord, give us light.
How hard it is to love someone
 who does not love you,
to open to one
 who does not knock,
to give health to one
 who enjoys being sick
  who cultivates illness...
Have pity on those who have 
 no pity for themselves. - JF


Tomorrow, April 6 is the birthday of Jacques Fesch.

Jacques Fesch, was a sort of Parisian 'playboy' who bungled a robbery and shot and killed a policeman in the getaway. In prison, Fesch was converted, through the influence of St. Therese - the little saint who specializes in the conversion of sinners, 'welcoming them and eating with them' - 'at the table of sinners'. Fesch was condemned to death and guillotined for his crime. After his death people called him a saint, and eventually his cause was opened by the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris. [More information here.]

Imagine. A murderer proposed for canonization? This public sinner died with a reputation for sanctity. The French police union protest and condemn the very notion.  Yet it is repentant sinners who are canonized. The Good Thief was one of the first - on the deathbed of his cross no less.

"It is only recently that I have come to understand the meaning of the cross. It is at once prodigious and atrocious: prodigious because it gives us life, and atrocious because if we do not accept to be crucified all life is denied us. This is a great mystery, and blessed are the persecuted." - Jacques Fesch