The Image
Faustina stated that in her vision Jesus told her:
- "Paint an image according to the pattern you see with the signature: Jesus, I trust in You… I promise that the soul that will venerate this image will not perish."
The chaplet is associated with the paintings of the image as in Faustina's diary. The most widely used is a Polish image painted by Adolf Hyla. Hyla painted the image in thanksgiving for having survived World War II.
In the image, Jesus stands with one hand outstretched in blessing, the other clutching the side wounded by the spear, from which proceed beams of falling light, red and white in color. An explanation of these colors was given to Saint Faustina by Jesus himself saying, "The two rays represent blood and water." These colors of the rays refer to the "blood and water" referenced in the Gospel of John, (John 19:34) and which is also mentioned in the optional prayer of the Chaplet. The words “Jesus I Trust in Thee” usually accompany the image, (“Jezu Ufam Tobie” in Polish).
The original Divine Mercy image was painted by Eugene Kazimierowski in Vilnius, Lithuania under St. Faustina's direction. However, according to her diary, she cried upon seeing that the finished picture was not as beautiful as the vision she had received, but Jesus comforted her saying, "Not in the beauty of the color, nor of the brush is the greatness of this image, but in My grace." The picture was widely used during the early years of the devotion, and is still in circulation within the movement, but the Hyla image remains one of the most reproduced renderings.
Read more about this topic: Divine Mercy
Famous quotes containing the word image:
“Let us imagine a number of men in chains and all condemned to death, where some are killed each day in the sight of the others, and those who remain see their own fate in that of their fellows and wait their turn, looking at each other sorrowfully and without hope. It is an image of the condition of man.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“He took the gold from them, formed it in a mold, and cast an image of a calf; and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!””
—Bible: Hebrew, Exodus 32:4.