The story you are about to read is a testimony to God's persistence in pursuing a wandering people. Heaven is reaching out to humanity in a plea to drink at the Fountain of Mercy. This is a story about Our Lady's intervention. She asked for the parish and I gave it to her. Indeed she is here.

I am responding to Our Lady's call from the depths of my nothingness and from the fiscal poverty of this parish. In the process I am learning that Heaven brings people into the path of its unfolding plan for humanity's salvation and sanctification. Some people are consistent and persevering in their response to God's will, others may respond for a time and then move on when the burden of his demand makes life uneasy. And others simply choose not to respond. No one is forced to respond to the will of God, and in fact, such a response is not easily discernable. Then, of course, there are those who fall into Satan's trap and succumb to his deceptions, lusting after the illusion, or finding themselves caught in his seductions. Whatever the case may be, Jesus never stops loving, and longs to allure us into his heart through the penetrating gaze of his Divine Mercy. His eyes are the window to his soul. His heart is the door through which Our Lady guides us to drink at the Fountain of Mercy. To this end she has requested a shrine.

The need for the shrine is at the heart of this story which continues to unfold through the purgative and transforming power of the Holy Spirit. The story is about the living and the dead and includes the sacred and the secular. In the midst of spiritual warfare, the mysticism of the Church, weaves itself through the lives of the faithful who respond to a call heard from that sacred place in the depths of the soul.

This story is unfolding and will not end until Jesus comes in glory as the just Judge. In the meantime we are living in a time of grace. It is the only time we have. Our indifference to the call would be chilling. Our silence would be condemning. We must build the shrine.

Father Anthony Bus, CR

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