Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:06] Hello. Welcome back. It's April 12th, and today is Divine Mercy Sunday, or the second Sunday of Easter.
[00:00:27] Can any painting truly capture the beauty of Jesus?
[00:00:31] Sister Maria Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun, quickly discovered the answer to that question.
[00:00:38] When the first Divine Mercy image was created in 1934, Sister Faustina's spiritual director, Father Michael Sipoko, commissioned Polish painter Eugene Kaczymiaowski to paint the image after becoming convinced Jesus was appearing to her and requested the image along with the inscription, jesus, I trust in you.
[00:01:06] Although Sister Faustina couldn't paint, she advised the artist along the way, visiting him at his home and describing what she had seen.
[00:01:17] Yet no matter how closely the artist followed her guidance, she was never satisfied.
[00:01:24] Leaving the artist's home one day, Sister Faustina went straight to the chapel and wept.
[00:01:31] Who will paint you as beautiful as you are? She cried out to Jesus.
[00:01:35] In response, she heard, not in the beauty of the color nor of the brush lies the greatness of this image, but in my grace.
[00:01:47] The original painting by Kazmierowski was hidden during World War II.
[00:01:53] It was rediscovered in the late 1980s and restored in more recent years.
[00:01:59] Today it hangs in the Church of the Holy Trinity, the shrine of Divine Mercy in Vilnius, Lithuania.
[00:02:07] Adolf Hyla painted another version that was placed above Sister Faustina's tomb at her convent in Ligwonieki, Poland, where where people can still view it today.
[00:02:19] A third version, painted by Robert Schemp, is the most popular in the Philippines and is displayed at the Divine Mercy Shrine outside Manila.
[00:02:30] The church has approved all three images for parishes and the faithful.
[00:02:45] Now we turn to today's homily. Are you a disciple of Jesus?
[00:02:53] The Gospels were preached long before they were written, and Peter would have heard the story of his repeated denial of Jesus.
[00:03:02] I wonder how he felt.
[00:03:05] Imagine him sitting there when it was one of the other apostles turned to preach.
[00:03:10] And he hears the apostles say, whoever disowns me before men, I will disown before my Father in heaven.
[00:03:26] I wonder how the other disciples felt.
[00:03:29] Every single one of them fled when Jesus was arrested.
[00:03:33] They must have heard this preached too, and they must have felt bad.
[00:03:38] Probably Peter would have stood up for Jesus had he been hauled before the magistrate rather than before a maid servant in the courtyard and called upon to accept or reject Christ publicly.
[00:03:52] Probably I would do the same if I were called up before some pagan tribunal to accept or reject Christ.
[00:04:01] It would be difficult, but the adrenaline would flow and I would summon up all my spiritual strength, and I could do it.
[00:04:10] But the problem is in the courtyards of my life, where I am often called upon, or at least given the opportunity to say whether or not I am a follower of Christ.
[00:04:22] The people are just ordinary people who want to know what kind of life I really live. And lots of times I may hedge in my response.
[00:04:33] It's not a question of whether or not I believe in God. It's whether or not I am a follower of Jesus.
[00:04:40] Much as the maidservant asked Peter, people want to know what value system I follow in my life, Jesus tells us, do not let them intimidate you. What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light what you hear in private, proclaim from the housetops, am I a disciple of Jesus?
[00:05:12] Spend some quiet time with the Lord.
