I received a question today regarding the Divine Mercy chaplet. My correspondent says that many years ago, the words on the small beads of the chaplet started,'Through the most sorrowful passion of Jesus etc...More recently, these have been changed to,
'For the sake of His sorrowful passion etc...This might seem a minor thing but I do take the point that it removes the repetition of the Holy Name of Jesus.
I remember that at the 99 names of Allah prayer vigil I led the Divine Mercy chaplet and afterwards there was some light-hearted discussion on an SSPX forum about whether they should have joined in with me. I would be interested to know if this was because of the newer wording or whether there is another issue in debate.
St Faustina's works were placed on the index of forbidden books by Pope John XXIII in 1959 at the request of Cardinal Ottaviani who was Prefect of the Holy Office. One account of this puts it down to a faulty translation of St Faustina's works. Others refer to a theological discussion concerning the attributes of God.
There was also a general suspicion of private revelations in the first half of the 20th century and I am interested to find out a little more about this. I recently read Fr Herbert Thurston's "Surprising Mystics" and was myself surprised at his rather disparaging tone and reliance on "modern psychology" as a better explanation of extraordinary phenomena than divine intervention. We do, of course, have to be cautious about extraordinary phenomena but there did seem to be an overly dismissive attitude in regard to, for example St Gemma Galgani, St Philomena, St Bernadette, and others. The cause of Teresa Higginson was, I think, a victim of the same skepticism.
The photo above is of the official image at Krakow. I visited the chapel in December 2006 with a polish priest friend and was able to say a prayer at the image. (For various posts with pictures of Krakow, search the blog for "Krakow" and scroll down.)
16 comments:
Last year, I was personally informed by a bilingual retired Polish bishop that the English translation, "Jesus, I trust in you," should be "Jesus, I trust you." He also gave a short explanation of the semantic difference that I largely forget, except that the Polish is much stronger than the standard English translation.
Similarly, my non-Catholic father, who learned Polish before English, says that "Jesus I trust you" is a word-for-word translation of the original Polish, "Jezu ufam Tobie," and figures that a more idiomatic translation might be "Jesus, I entrust my life to you," so I'm thinking that it's a verb strongly connoting [or even denoting] complete trust.
I seem to remember Our Lord telling Sr Faustina to say the chaplet only exactly as He has given it. So it would seem important to resolve this question from the original Polish diary. Please pray for the victims of that awful fire in the Polish homeless hostel, RIP.
Father,
I wonder is this only with the English version of the chaplet? If there's any conflict in the versions, surely St. Faustina's original diary should have the "correct" wording?
I certainly like the "old" version but I wonder just how long it might have been in use, at least in the English-speaking world, given that the devotion can hardly have been well known until after the War, and then it was suppressed betwen 1959 and 1978?
Private revelations are a difficult question because they often seem to be a dime a dozen. Here in Texas we hear all sorts of things about the image of our Lady of Guadalupe appearing on this tree bark, or that concrete spot, that enchilada, etc. I've come to call the phenomenon "Our Lady of the Tortilla."
The issue is possibly regarding that in one of her visions she says that the host comes upon her hand, hence it could endorse the validity of the Communion on the hand.
Sorry,forgot to mention also the replacing the low sunday(in albis) with the feast of divine mercy.
Personally, all I could say that in my younger years and early in my career I had been a devotee of the Divine Mercy. And I received special graces from Jesus and from the intercession of St. Faustina. Whenever I have difficult moments and even problems where it is impossible to resolve this novena has always been to the rescue. Sometimes it is a matter of faith. And often the Lord much as He wish to help us could not move beyond our faith as He respects our freedom. Jesus said if you have faith as a mustard seed (take note) you can command the mountains to go into the sea! This faith defies the erudite discussions of the Theologians.
Father,
According to some sources that I have read, St. Faustina's diary was forbidden on the evidence that some of the entries were written by hands other than St. Faustina herself.
It seems to me that this would make sense since St. Faustina only had several winters of schooling in her home village in Poland.
Also, the suspicion of mystics and private revelations may also have something to do with this.
God bless,
Brother Juniper
'Through the most sorrowful passion of Jesus etc...
More recently, these have been changed to,
'For the sake of His sorrowful passion etc...
How recently is recently? I have only ever known "For the sake of His sorrowful passion..."
To me they both mean the same thing. Is this going to be a 'big-ender' 'little-ender' war?
Let's just say the chaplet.
The revised version is closer to the Polish original. You might know the Italian, which is word-for-word (at least in this phrase).
Antonoi - if you read what Our Lord said to St Faustina about observing the Feast, there is nothing about any liturgical change - the liturgy of the day is already about mercy. Observation of the feast involves sermons on the mercy of God, public veneration of the image, plus confession and communion and the chaplet (if I remember correctly) - so nothing is replaced.
I believe the original reason why the devotion was placed on the index was because of the alleged saying of Our Lord to St. Faustina that the Feast of Mercy was a "second Baptism". There may well have been a faulty translation of the transcripts of the revelations but the Holy Office had good reason to put it on the Index - better safe than to be embarrassed in front of the world by approving what turns out to be a false apparition.
What I find more scandalous however, is how Our Lord's words to St. Faustina were tampered to fit in with the new orientation of the church since Vatican II. In my mothers Divine Mercy prayer book, one can find the following for the fifth day of the novena:
"Today bring to Me the Souls of those who have separated themselves from My Church*"The asterisk footnote then goes onto explain:
*Our Lord's original words here were "heretics and schismatics," since He spoke to Saint Faustina within the context of her times. As of the Second Vatican Council, Church authorities have seen fit not to use those designations in accordance with the explanation given in the Council's Decree on Ecumenism (n.3). Every pope since the Council has reaffirmed that usage. Saint Faustina herself, her heart always in harmony with the mind of the Church, most certainly would have agreed. When at one time, because of the decisions of her superiors and father confessor, she was not able to execute Our Lord's inspirations and orders, she declared: "I will follow Your will insofar as You will permit me to do so through Your representative. O my Jesus " I give priority to the voice of the Church over the voice with which You speak to me" (497). The Lord confirmed her action and praised her for it.I find it personally scandalous that they would use this an opportunity to promote the rather usual cushy feel-good ecumenism, we have been accustomed to and try and justify it with an incident of how Our Lord congratulates St. Faustina for obeying her superiors.
As if the last 45 years, have not taught us that obedience can only apply to things that do not endanger the faith.
Although I am praying the Divine Mercy Novena right now, to be completed on Divine Mercy Sunday, the fact that there *is* a Divine Mercy Sunday, which is based on a private revelation (and therefore not binding for Catholics to believe) is rather odd to me.
-Garrett
I've noted that even faithful priests seem to struggle with private revelations. It seems to be God's will that those souls who receive them encounter much suffering and penance.
Forgive my ignorance, folks ... but what is a chaplet?
A form of prayer using beads.
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