“Approach your family as you would approach Christ.”
This book is for Christian women who want to learn more about St. Faustina Kowalska’s Divine Mercy devotion. The book is geared toward Catholic mothers, but any Christian wife and any Christian mother will find wonderful tips on how to improve their faith in the midst of marriage and motherhood. This book is also for women who don’t have a lot of time to read as the book is short and to-the-point. This book is also written to be used by small groups for a book study.
Michele Faehnle and Emily Jaminet co-wrote the book with Michele writing chapters 1, 4 and 6 and Emily writing chapters 2, 3 and 5. They wrote the introduction and study guide together. They are friends who have known each other for a long time and they have worked together on women’s conferences in Columbus, Ohio. They also co-chair our Catholic school’s Catholic Identity Committees and give talks on our faith to women’s groups and other organizations. Emily has a daily radio reflection called “A Mother’s Moment,” which streams live on St. Gabriel Radio at 2:55 p.m. EST each weekday.
Michele and Emily wrote the book mainly for mothers to show the spiritual and practical side of living out Divine Mercy. The book is written from their personal stories and perspectives. They invite you along on their life journey as they’ve strived to apply lessons learned from St. Faustina in their daily lives.
Mothers are busy with all the daily tasks to run a family. Often, spirituality is pushed to the side. However, it can be a vitally important part of being a good mother. Emily and Michele wrote a short book to show mothers how the lessons of Divine Mercy can help increase their spirituality in their day-to-day lives. 2017 was called the Year of Mercy by the Catholic Church. Many people focused on learning more about St. Faustina. Divine Mercy for Moms was actually published beforehand, so it became a great resource for mothers.
St. Faustina was canonized in 2000 by Pope John Paul II. She was Polish and she joined a convent when she was 18 years old. She had a vision of Jesus where she was asked to paint a picture of him (you can see it here). She also kept a diary where she wrote about how Jesus spoke to her about mercy. She died of tuberculosis at the age of 33. From her diary, there is a Chaplet of Divine Mercy prayer.
The book goes over the history of St. Faustina and then goes into lessons from Divine Mercy for mothers. They cover developing trust in Jesus, showing mercy to neighbors, the corporal works of mercy, the spiritual works of mercy and Mary’s role in mercy. For each topic, the authors share very personal stories about how they try to live out divine mercy in each topic. For the history of St. Faustina, Michele shares her story about visiting The Shrine of Divine Mercy in Poland. In the chapter about trusting Jesus, Emily goes over how she finds little ways in her day to implement thinking about Divine Mercy through the prayers or having the image placed somewhere she sees it often. The rest of the chapters share very practical ways to live out Divine Mercy in our homes, neighborhoods and communities.
The authors also have a great Web site that has a blog, resources, shop and support area. They offer some freebies, which include a bookmark, coloring page, journal page and checklists. There is a resource page that offers links to enhance the book and they are organized by each chapter in the book. They have also written a second book called The Friendship Project, which encourages women in their friendships with each other.
I found this book to be very profound and inspirational. Since it was only 6 chapters, I read one chapter each Sunday during the season of Lent so that I would take my time to read and ponder the ideas in the book. A dear friend of mine gave me a copy of the book as she had two copies. Neither of us knew too much about St. Faustina or Divine Mercy, but we strive to be good mothers who share our faith with our children. I will be keeping this book on my bookshelf as a resource and will probably re-read it at least once a year. I will also recommend this to friends who are mothers and need some encouragement.