This morning's insight came from one of those convergences of two things I'm doing at the same time - this happens to me all the time, and I really believe that this is one of the main ways God speaks to us - so maybe that insight is as important as the actual morning insight for today.

As I've been working on our gospel passages in the Beatitudes for The Journey, looking ahead to "blessed are those who mourn," it won't surprise you to hear that the Church fathers interpreted that as repentance, i.e., blessed are those who mourn over their sins. But some said that an even higher level of holiness would be characterized by mourning over the sins of others. So in a very real way, even the saints are never completely free of mourning, since the fewer sins of your own you have to regret, the more you start to see other people on their way to hell, and you mourn their sins.

And then this morning I read this passage in the diary of St. Faustina, which shows how she did exactly that. Here is a prayer she wrote in her diary (she often just wrote as she prayed and prayed as she wrote):

Oh Jesus, my Jesus, with what great pain is my soul pierced when I see this fountain of life gushing forth with such sweetness and power for each soul, while at the same time I see souls withering away and drying up through their own fault. Oh Jesus, grant that the power of mercy embrace these souls.

FYI, the gushing fountain she's talking about is a reference to her image of the blood and water that came out of Christ's side on the cross, and that is a fountain of mercy. And in Catholic theology, when Jesus' side was pierced, the spear went all the way in to his heart, so it's really his heart that was pierced, and what came out was not just blood and water, but the grace that comes with the blood and water of the sacraments. That's oversimplifying it a bit, but you get the idea. Recall that Jesus himself gave to St. Faustina the "Divine Mercy" image, in a vision, and she commissioned the original painting of it.

Thoughts?