The Sanctuary of Divine Mercy located in Kraków, Poland is the next on our journey as we take our Faith On The Road. dedicated to the Divine Mercy devotion, as the resting place of St. Faustina. This new Basilica was completed in 2002.
The altar in the main sanctuary houses the Divine Mercy painting and relics of Saint Faustina. The image above the main altar was painted by Adolph Hyla in 1944, and replaces the first image Hyla painted in 1943 as a votive offering for surviving during WW2. The image and the basilica are a major pilgrimage site and in 2011 the basilica received around 2 million pilgrims from around the world. Visitors to the basilica include Pope St John Paul II, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Pope Francis. The lower level of the church has a central a chapel dedicated to Saint Faustina, with four side chapels.
We arrived at the basilica just before 3:00 PM on our last full day in Poland. This was the place I wanted to come to from the first time I saw the itinerary. This site also houses the Sister Faustina’s convent and the final resting place of this great Mercy Saint.
My wife and I ran across the parking lot and down the sidewalk leading to the shrine. The quick movement was at my prompting, I wanted so badly to be in the shrine for the 3 o’clock hour and pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy in this site. This picture was taken during that ‘run’.
We entered the chapel just before 3:00 PM and even had time to find a seat and settle our hearts before a sister rang the bell and the Chaplet began. Walking through the ‘Doors of Mercy’ and entering the Chaplet was incredible.
Praying this Chaplet with this community and in this location was a true highlight of our pilgrimage that I’ll always treasure. Praying the Chaplet with my wife and some of our closest friends made this experience truly priceless. We prayed in English, Italian and of course, Polish. This was the second time we had heard the Chaplet as St. Faustina would have prayed it, in her native language. I felt a close union to the Saint, that she would blow the doors off in a couple of hours.
I would very highly recommend a pilgrimage to Poland to visit the sites of St. Faustina and Divine Mercy, especially Kraków and the Sanctuary of Divine Mercy.
“The soul, at this moment is, as it were, hidden; its senses are inactive; in one moment, it knows God and drowns in Him. It knows the whole depth of the Unfathomable One, and the deeper this knowledge, the more ardently the soul desires Him.”. Divine Mercy in my soul # 771