April 19, 1993

General Audience

(L’Osservatore Romano, Monday-Tuesday, April 19-20, 1993) 

"The example of the newly Beatified accompany you on your daily Christian walk." This is the wish expressed by John Paul II to the thousands of pilgrims gathered in Rome to participate in the solemn rite of beatification of Sunday, the 18th, and received in audience on the morning of Monday the 19th. During the meeting that took place in St. Peter’s Square, the Pope pronounced the following discourse: 

1. I greet all of you, dearest brothers and sisters, who have come to Rome to render homage to the newly beatified. 

Our encounter today represents a joyous prolongation of the solemn celebration that took place yesterday in this very square. With you I praise the Lord for such an extraordinary spiritual experience, and I wish everyone to give faithful witness to the Gospel, imitating the luminous examples of these servants of God, elevated to the honors of the altar. 

2. Words of greeting I direct, next, to the Sisters of the Congregation of Our Lady of Mercy and to the numerous devotees of the Divine Mercy, gathered in Rome from many regions of Italy for the Beatification of Sister Faustina Kowalska. Yesterday has been a great day for all of you. 

Dearly beloved, be apostles, by your word and your works, of the divine merciful love revealed to the highest degree in Jesus Christ. We are speaking of a mystery that, in a certain sense, is for all people the fountain of a life different from that which human beings are in a position to build with their own strength (Dives in Misericordia, 14). 

May this mystery be for every one of you the inspiration and the strength to carry out the divine mercy in actual life. In the name of this mystery, Christ teaches us to pardon always and to love one another reciprocally as He himself has loved us. 

"God rich in mercy" (Eph 2:4) bless you and make fruitful your apostolic commitment. 

Since we came back to Sr. Faustina, one more wish, that these simple words, "Jesus, I trust in You!" that I see here on so many images, continually be for human hearts also in the future, near the end of this century and this millennium, and the next, a clear indicator of the way. "Jesus I trust in You." There is no such darkness in which man would need to lose himself. If only he will put his trust in Jesus, he will always find himself in the light. Praised be Jesus Christ!