St. Faustina and God's Love

"Jesus, when You come to me in Holy Communion, You who together with the Father and the Holy Spirit have deigned to dwell in the little heaven of my heart, I try to keep You company throughout the day, I do not leave You alone for even a moment. Although I am in the company of other people or with our wards, my heart is always united to Him. When I am asleep I offer Him every beat of my heart; when I awaken I immerse myself in Him without saying a word. When I awaken I adore the Holy Trinity for a short while and thank God for having deigned to give me yet another day, that the mystery of the incarnation of His Son may once more be repeated in me, and that once again His sorrowful Passion may unfold before my eyes. I then try to make it easier for Jesus to pass through me to other souls. I go everywhere with Jesus; His presence accompanies me everywhere. "

-Divine Mercy in My Soul, the diary of St. Faustina

What I love about St. Faustina is how well she understood the love God has for us; not just that He would die for us, but that He's there for us every day at every moment no matter what we're doing. She understood what it meant to walk with God, always having him in her heart and on her mind. She realized that everything in her life was a gift of love from our Saviour. This a truth that we always need to have buried deep within us, a truth that we will never let go of, no matter what may happen. 

Not only do we have to hold on to this truth, but we also have to respond to it. And really, how could we realize God's great love for us and not be moved to respond? Scripture, especially St. John, has a lot to say about God's love. 1 John 3:1 says,"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!" Jesus also says in St. John's gospel, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." We're even told that "God is love." Finally, Jesus tells us how the Father made his love manifest in John 3:16. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." Knowing that God loves us so much that he would give his only son to us ought to move us. If we truly believe that God loves us so much, how could we help but love him in return?

St. Faustina clearly truly believed this, and it's so inspiring to see her response. Because she loved God as perfectly as she could and opened her heart to him, we now have the Divine Mercy image and her personal diary. We can use the Divine Mercy image to meditate on how God loves us. From her diary, we can discover what it means to love God in return in everything we do. We know that God is truly with us all the time, and that every little thing that happens in our day, good or bad, is another little part of the love letter that he is always writing to us.