USA, Stockbridge<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div> May 21, 2014<\/p>\n<\/div> Calling it “an extraordinary event in the history of our community and of our Shrine,” the Rev.\u00a0Fr.\u00a0Kaz Chwalek,\u00a0MIC, welcomed a very special guest Tuesday to the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy.<\/p>\n Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, who served as the personal secretary to St.\u00a0Pope John Paul\u00a0II for nearly 40\u00a0years, celebrated Mass with the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception in Stockbridge,\u00a0Mass., during a brief and intimate visit kept purposefully low-key.<\/p>\n “He was a witness to [John Paul\u00a0II’s] holiness and a witness to all his work. He’s a witness to the very life and mission of John Paul\u00a0II, who we cherish now as\u00a0Saint<\/i>\u00a0John Paul\u00a0II,” said Fr.\u00a0Kaz, the Marians’ provincial superior in the United States and Argentina. “We have collaborated for many years. We have worked with him side by side, and it has been an incredible joy. We are fulfilling the Lord’s work … and we have done so together.”<\/p>\n Marians from throughout the province greeted the famous cardinal, including about a dozen men in formation. The Mass, at 10:30\u00a0a.m., was held for employees of Eden Hill and a few guests.<\/p>\n The visit was as much a celebration of a shared love for the Merciful Savior as it was a celebration of their shared love of St.\u00a0John Paul\u00a0II, who was canonized on April\u00a027, Divine Mercy Sunday. It was John Paul\u00a0II who implored the Marians to “be Apostles of the Divine Mercy under the maternal and loving guidance of Mary.”<\/p>\n The Marians partnered throughout John Paul’s 26-year pontificate in the spread of the Divine Mercy revelations of St.\u00a0Faustina. It was Cardinal Dziwisz who gave the Marians one of the few first-class relics in existence of St.\u00a0John Paul\u00a0II, following his death in\u00a02005. That relic, a drop of blood, has become a major draw for pilgrims.<\/p>\n “I would like to offer this Mass for all of the Marian Fathers who have helped so much in promoting the Divine Mercy all over the world and who helped so much in the beatification process of St.\u00a0Sr.\u00a0Faustina,” said Cardinal Dziwisz, who serves as archbishop of Krakow, in Poland.<\/p>\n His Eminence remarked at the beginning of Mass how he oversees the Sanctuary of the Divine Mercy in Krakow-Lagiewniki, on the grounds of the convent where St.\u00a0Faustina received many of her revelations, which she recorded in her diary, now known the world over as\u00a0Divine Mercy in My Soul: Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska<\/a><\/i>. The Marians in Stockbridge are the publishers of the\u00a0Diary<\/i>\u00a0in English and many other languages.<\/p>\n Noting the Polish heritage of John Paul\u00a0II, St.\u00a0Faustina, and the Marian Congregation itself, Cardinal Dziwisz said, “I’m glad to see there is such a beautiful National Shrine of The Divine Mercy here in America. You could tell the Polish heart is beating here, and the hearts of all those who worship Divine Mercy are beating here.”<\/p>\n He added, “We worship the Merciful Jesus here, but we venerate here also two great apostles of Divine Mercy: first, St.\u00a0Sr.\u00a0Faustina, who received the message of Divine Mercy, and then St.\u00a0John Paul\u00a0II, the great apostle of Divine Mercy who spread Divine Mercy all around the world.”<\/p>\n View the opening remarks of both Fr. Kaz and Cardinal Dziwisz:<\/p>\n<\/div>USA, Stockbridge, Mass.: A Visit from the Secretary to a Saint<\/h1><\/div>