A Novena of Divine Mercy
Iesu, confido in te
All Mankind, and Sinners First
The Novena Prayer
O God, who dost manifest thine almighty power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity, mercifully grant unto us such a measure of thy grace, that we, running the way of thy commandments, may obtain thy gracious promises, and be made partakers of thy heavenly treasure.
The devotion traces to Sister Faustina Kowalska (1905-1938), a Polish nun of the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, who reported the first vision behind it on 22 February 1931 at the convent in Plock, describing Christ in a white garment with two rays, pale and red, streaming from his heart.
Priests and Religious
The Novena Prayer
O God, who dost manifest thine almighty power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity, mercifully grant unto us such a measure of thy grace, that we, running the way of thy commandments, may obtain thy gracious promises, and be made partakers of thy heavenly treasure.
Faustina's spiritual director in Vilnius, Father Michael Sopocko, commissioned the first painted image of the vision from the artist Eugeniusz Kazimirowski in 1934, working from her own description of what she had seen.
The Devout and Faithful
The Novena Prayer
O God, who dost manifest thine almighty power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity, mercifully grant unto us such a measure of thy grace, that we, running the way of thy commandments, may obtain thy gracious promises, and be made partakers of thy heavenly treasure.
Faustina recorded her visions and conversations in a set of notebooks later published as the Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska, kept between 1934 and 1938 at the direction of her confessors, who wanted a record in case the visions proved genuine.
Those Who Do Not Believe
The Novena Prayer
O God, who dost manifest thine almighty power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity, mercifully grant unto us such a measure of thy grace, that we, running the way of thy commandments, may obtain thy gracious promises, and be made partakers of thy heavenly treasure.
Faustina died of tuberculosis on 5 October 1938 at the convent in Krakow-Lagiewniki, aged thirty-three, largely unknown outside her own community and without having seen the devotion spread beyond Poland.
The Divided
The Novena Prayer
O God, who dost manifest thine almighty power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity, mercifully grant unto us such a measure of thy grace, that we, running the way of thy commandments, may obtain thy gracious promises, and be made partakers of thy heavenly treasure.
In 1959, the Holy Office placed the Diary on a list of works whose circulation it discouraged, chiefly because of an unreliable Italian translation; the restriction stood for nearly twenty years before it was lifted in 1978 after a fresh review.
The Meek, and the Children
The Novena Prayer
O God, who dost manifest thine almighty power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity, mercifully grant unto us such a measure of thy grace, that we, running the way of thy commandments, may obtain thy gracious promises, and be made partakers of thy heavenly treasure.
The review that led to the restriction being lifted in 1978 was overseen by Karol Wojtyla, then Archbishop of Krakow, the same diocese where Faustina had died forty years before.
Those Who Trust the Mercy
The Novena Prayer
O God, who dost manifest thine almighty power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity, mercifully grant unto us such a measure of thy grace, that we, running the way of thy commandments, may obtain thy gracious promises, and be made partakers of thy heavenly treasure.
Karol Wojtyla, who as Archbishop of Krakow had overseen the review that lifted the restriction on the Diary, beatified Faustina as Pope John Paul II on 18 April 1993 and canonized her on 30 April 2000, both ceremonies held in Rome.
The Souls in Purgatory
The Novena Prayer
O God, who dost manifest thine almighty power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity, mercifully grant unto us such a measure of thy grace, that we, running the way of thy commandments, may obtain thy gracious promises, and be made partakers of thy heavenly treasure.
At Faustina's canonization in 2000, John Paul II established the Second Sunday of Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday for the universal Church, the feast this novena leads into.
The Lukewarm
The Novena Prayer
O God, who dost manifest thine almighty power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity, mercifully grant unto us such a measure of thy grace, that we, running the way of thy commandments, may obtain thy gracious promises, and be made partakers of thy heavenly treasure.
The novena is customarily prayed alongside the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, said on ordinary rosary beads, and alongside the daily observance of three o'clock, the Hour of Great Mercy, kept in memory of the hour of Christ's death.
The prayer above is an ancient collect of the Roman rite, of unknown authorship and traceable to the Gregorian Sacramentary, still said at Mass today (the twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time); it is given here in the older public-domain English translation rather than the Church's current copyrighted one, and was chosen because, unlike the Chaplet's own prayers, it predates the Divine Mercy devotion by well over a thousand years and owes nothing to it. The nine intentions are those of the traditional Divine Mercy novena; the days are named for them here. The text of the diary of St. Faustina Kowalska is in copyright and is not reproduced. What follows each day is a fact about Sister Faustina, the diary, or the history of the devotion, one per day. The novena is customarily prayed alongside the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, which is said on ordinary rosary beads.
