Josefa Menéndez, Mystic of Mercy
(Acts 5:12-16; Rev.1:9-13, 17-19; Jn.20:19-31)
25 years ago, in April 2000, Pope St John Paul II canonised Faustina Kowalska and established the second Sunday of Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday. This is what we celebrate today.
St Faustina (1905-38) is the humble Polish nun who most people associate with Divine Mercy Sunday. Jesus appeared to her many times and gave her a vision of himself as the ‘King of Divine Mercy’ wearing white, with rays of white and red light shining from his heart.
Jesus told her that the world won’t find peace until it starts trusting in his mercy. ‘My Heart overflows with great mercy for souls, especially for poor sinners,’ he said. ‘If only they could understand that I am the best of Fathers to them and that it’s for them that the blood and water flowed from my heart…’ (Diary 367).
He also said, ‘The greater the sinner, the greater the right they have to my mercy… Whoever trusts in my mercy will not perish, for all his affairs are mine and his enemies will be shattered at the base of my footstool.’ (Diary 723)
Jesus’ messages have been published in St Faustina’s diary. However, she is not the only person Jesus spoke to about his Divine Mercy. He also appeared to Josefa Menéndez in France in the 1920s.
Josefa was born in Madrid, in 1890, the first of six children to devout Christian parents. She had her first Holy Communion when she was 11, and that’s when she decided to become a nun.
At 20, she tried to join a convent, but her mother refused to allow it. Josefa’s father had died in an accident and money was short. So, she worked as a seamstress until she was 30, and then she joined the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Poitiers, France.
Sr Josefa was a simple nun who had little education, no formal theological training and never learned to speak French. However, she enjoyed working quietly, sewing, cleaning and looking after the sacristy.
Jesus was drawn to her humility and for nearly four years, until she died in 1923, he often appeared to her. He asked her to be an apostle of his goodness and mercy. ‘The world doesn’t know my mercy,’ Jesus said, ‘and I want you to help make it known.’
He taught Josefa to be humble, obedient and loving in every little thing she did.
‘Love doesn’t just consist in saying, ‘I love you, O my God!’ he said. ‘No, love acts because it loves, it does everything by loving. I want you to love in this way, in work as well as in rest, in prayer and consolation as well as in sorrow and humiliation, proving this love to me constantly by your works, for this is love.’
Jesus invited Sr Josefa into his mystical heart, and in return she offered Jesus her life to console his wounded heart and to save souls. He said to her, ‘See how my heart is consumed with love for souls! You too must burn with the desire for their salvation. I want you to go deep into my heart today and make reparation in union with it. Yes, we must repair!’
Commenting on his Passion, Jesus explained how he feels at every Eucharist and he asked her to help him carry his Cross, in reparation for the ingratitude of so many.
‘All I want is the love of souls,’ he said, ‘but they respond to me with ingratitude. I want to fill them with my graces, but they pierce my heart. I call them, but they run from me.’
Sr Josefa agreed to link her suffering with that of Jesus, and she also offered to unite all her simple, loving actions with his heart.
Jesus asked her to surrender herself completely to his divine will: ‘I have no need of your strength,’ he said, ‘but of your abandonment.’
Every word Josefa recorded from Jesus is consistent with the messages Jesus gave St Faustina Kowalska and St Margaret Mary Alocoque (1647-90) about his sacred, loving heart. They also align with the essence of St Therese of Lisieux’s autobiography and the Gospel itself.
Pope Pius XII authorised the publication of Josefa’s book The Way of Divine Love, and in 1947, the process for her beatification began.
Today, on Divine Mercy Sunday, the message for us is simple but profound: Jesus wants the world to understand that he is the God of love, mercy and forgiveness, and he wants everyone to return to him.
‘Let them come to me!’ he says. ‘Let them throw themselves into my arms! Let them have no fear, for I am their Father.’ [i]
[i] Sr Josefa Menendez, The Way of Divine Love, Must Have Books, 2023.