A GROWING movement within Roman Catholicism worldwide arrived to Listowel for the first time ever on Sunday with the unveiling of a beautiful new shrine to the life and message of the first saint of the new millenium, St Faustina.
The Divine Mercy Shrine was blessed on Sunday in a special prayer service between 3pm and 4pm; the work of St Faustina's local devotees with the help of parish priest Canon Declan O'connor who facilitated the whole thing.
It now makes a wonderful companion piece to the newly-erected shrine to St Pio on the opposite side of the Church. Both represent Listowel's very own celebration of Catholicism's most recently canonized saints.
"St Faustina was born Helen Kowalska in a village near Lodz in Poland in 1905 and entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy at the age of 20," one of the chief organisers of the shrine Jackie Mcgillicuddy said.
"She died at the age of only 33, but in her short life within the order heard and communicated the message of our Lord in a very special way. St Faustina received visions of Our Lord and was instructed to draw them as part of her work in spreading the message of His divine mercy."
Sr Faustina was blessed by her fellow countryman, Pope John Paul II, in 1993 and canonized on April 30, 2000 — the first saint of the new millenium.
"The Divine Mercy movement within the Catholic Church is huge around the world today and we have been celebrating it here with prayers after 10.30am Mass every weekday since 2004. The following has grown and grown in Listowel and we are delighted to have been able to erect the shrine. There is one person without whom all this would not have been possible and that is Canon Declan O'connor. He's a wonderful man and facilitated all this for us, from the prayers after Mass to the erection of the shrine. We can't thank him enough."