Divine Mercy

The most famous quote from modern philosophy comes from

Fredrich Nietzsche, who in 1882 wrote God is dead, and we have killed him. The philosophical works of Nietzsche were literary in form, stories, and the context for this quote is important. It was delivered by a madman, running through the streets, screaming that the death of God would lead to the collapse of western civilization, as the moral system built based on Gods existence, Christianity, replaced with something else.

 The brutal reality of the carnage of WWI, not too long after the exhortations of Nietzsches madman, confirmed in many peoples minds that God was dead. Read some of the poetry of WWI, some from the early years and some from after the war. The early poems are full of brave young men marching off for glory, honor and defense of the homeland.

All That We Have And Are – Kipling
No easy hope or lies
Shall bring us to our goal,
But iron sacrifice
Of body, will, and soul.
There is but one task for all
One life for each to give.
What stands if Freedom fall?
Who dies if England live?

This was 1914. Kipling lost his son in the war. After the horror of the trenches, the machine guns and the gas, the death of a generation of young men, the poetry had changed. A later war poem by Kipling was titled Gethsemane. This one from Housman

Here dead lie we
Here dead lie we because we did not choose
To live and shame the land from which we sprung.
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose;
But young men think it is, and we were young.

Communism and Fascism, as Nietzsche had predicted, filled the void.

What does our loving God do? Who does he send us to lead the way out of our misery. Does he send some fiery orator, making impassioned pleas to repent. Does he send the hierarchy of the Church? No. God sends his most trusted emissaries to show us the way. He sends Mary, the Mother of God, the Blessed Mother, to 3 simple peasant children in Fatima with a simple message. Pray. And he sends Jesus, the Son of God, to a young, semi-literate Polish nun, Sister Faustina, now Saint Faustina, with another simple message. Trust in me. Mercy, not Power.