Irene Sendler: A Polish Hero!

How cool is this????

A while back, I mentioned a Polish-Catholic woman who saved 2500 Jewish children in the Warsaw Ghetto during WW2 ...

well....

tomorrow night, on CBS, Hallmark Hall of Fame will be showing a new movie titled The Courageous Heart of Irene Sendler!

Please let me know how it is ... we don't have cable and our "digital converter antenna" that is supposed to help us get all the stations now, doesn't work ....

BTW, the REALLY cool thing?

Ms. Sendler had a Divine Mercy holycard that she kept with her throughout her war years ... a card she kept until 1979, when she gave it to then pope, John Paul the Great.

Tomorrow is Divine Mercy Sunday ... I wonder if CBS knew?

Novena: Divine Mercy starts today

The Divine Mercy Novena

Jesus asked that the Feast of the Divine Mercy be preceded by a Novena to the Divine Mercy which would begin on Good Friday. He gave St. Faustina an intention to pray for on each day of the Novena, saving for the last day the most difficult intention of all, the lukewarm and indifferent of whom He said:

"These souls cause Me more suffering than any others; it was from such souls that My soul felt the most revulsion in the Garden of Olives. It was on their account that I said: 'My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass Me by.'
The last hope of salvation for them is to flee to My Mercy."

In her diary, St. Faustina wrote that Jesus told her:

"On each day of the novena you will bring to My heart a different group of souls and you will immerse them in this ocean of My mercy ... On each day you will beg My Father, on the strength of My passion, for the graces for these souls."

The different souls prayed for on each day of the novena are:

DAY 1 (Good Friday) - All mankind, especially sinners
DAY 2 (Holy Saturday) - The souls of priests and religious
DAY 3 (Easter Sunday) - All devout and faithful souls
DAY 4 (Easter Monday) - Those who do not believe in Jesus

and those who do not yet know Him
DAY 5 (Easter Tuesday) - The souls of separated brethren
DAY 6 (Easter Wednesday) - The meek and humble souls and the souls of children
DAY 7 (Easter Thursday) - The souls who especially venerate and glorify Jesus' mercy
DAY 8 (Easter Friday) - The souls who are detained in purgatory;
DAY 9 (Easter Saturday) - The souls who have become lukewarm.

The Chaplet of Divine Mercy may also be offered each day for the day's intention, but is not strictly necessary to the Novena.

FYI: The image above is one I took at the Divine Mercy Shrine in Krakow, Poland in Feb 2003 when BamBam and I did a bus trip to southern Poland with some Franciscan University students. This is the original image and is visited by hundreds of thousands of pilgrims each year. What an amazingly beautiful setting in the midst of industrial Krakow!

Irene Sendler: A Polish Woman

Today, the anniversary of JP the Great's death, is a good day for me to post about another brave and devout Pole.

Irene Sendler is little-known outside of Poland. She was a social worker and nurse throughout World War 2. Seems she helped almost 2500 (!) Jewish children hide from the Nazis and escape from the Nazi-held Warsaw ghetto. For her good works, the Nazis arrested her in October of 1943, breaking her feet and legs. Sentenced to die, friends bribed the Gestapo guards and she escaped, only to be hunted by the Nazis for the rest of the War.

You can read more about this remarkable Pole at Giles Cote's Catholic Faith Education blog.

This "saviour of children" died in 2008, at the age of 98. A movie titled The Courageous Heart of Irene Sendler is currently in production.