Love’s second name: how Divine Mercy Shrine became a multicultural sanctuary

Built by the Polish community and loved by Catholics from every background, the Shrine of Divine Mercy is a pilgrim place with a very specific purpose. The shrine, in Keysborough, is Australia’s first dedicated to the Divine Mercy devotion.

Its designation as one of the Melbourne Archdiocese’s Jubilee 2025 Pilgrim Places comes at a busy time for the shrine, as it marks 25 years since the canonisation of patron saint St Faustina Kowalska and her 120th birthday. The parish is also preparing for the 20th anniversary of the shrine next year.

The rector, Fr Kamil Zylczynski, explains that the Polish community bought the land in 1998 to build a church for the many Poles living in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs. It was during the papacy of John Paul II, who was ‘very involved in promoting the Divine Mercy, the message of St Faustina’, Fr Kamil says. So, when it came time to choose a name for the new church, they decided on Divine Mercy.

‘The first reason was the Polish background,’ he says. ‘The people were from Poland; St Faustina and Pope John Paul were Poles, and we came here to Australia with this message from them.’

The message Fr Kamil refers to is contained in the writings of St Faustina, then a 32-year-old nun in Kraków, who had had visions of Jesus and recorded what he said: that a spark would come from Poland and prepare the world for his final return.

‘So it’s not only about the building, the new church for the community; it is about spreading the Good News, which Jesus [gave] to St Faustina and asked her to spread around the world.’

The Keysborough building was consecrated by Archbishop Denis Hart in 2006. ‘Having this opportunity to promote the cult of Divine Mercy, Archbishop Hart decided to give a title of “shrine”,’ Fr Kamil says. ‘It was his initiative to do it this way.’

Faustina is best known for her revelations of Jesus as the Divine Mercy, which she recorded in her diary in the 1930s. She reported seeing Jesus with rays of red and pale light emanating from his heart. During her visions, Jesus instructed her to have an image painted according to what she saw, with the signature ‘Jesus, I trust in you’.

She kept a diary, Divine Mercy in My Soul, where she recorded her conversations with Jesus, revelations and her spiritual struggles. The diary was initially banned by the Vatican, reportedly because of a poor translation from Polish to Italian. Months before he became Pope John Paul II in 1978, the then-Cardinal of Kraków, Karol Wojtyła, lifted the ban, and the diary became a fundamental part of the Divine Mercy devotion.

Fr Kamil says the Divine Mercy Shrine truly became a magnet for multicultural pilgrims during the 2016 extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, when it was designated one of the sites that could open a ‘Holy Door’. In Pope Francis’ papal bull on the occasion, he decreed ‘the Holy Door will become a Door of Mercy through which anyone who enters will experience the love of God who consoles, pardons, and instils hope.’

‘That was like “boom”: many people from the migrant community and churches around started to come to the shrine,’ Fr Kamil says. ‘And from that time, we have English Mass during the week and Sunday afternoon. We have the Rosary, the Hour of Mercy, the Chaplet [a devotion that includes prayers from the diary of St Faustina].’

Fr Kamil believes people come seeking ‘the forgiveness, the cure ... And the message is very for-our-time. I mean, we all need hope. There are people who feel lost in this world and not having their places.

‘And many people coming from other countries who found their home in Australia already knew [about] Faustina and Divine Mercy, so that was the place for them to pray as well, not only for the Polish community.’

Speaking at the shrine on Divine Mercy Sunday (nominated by St John Paul II as the second Sunday of Easter, based on a request St Faustina said that Jesus had made), the volunteer director of the Divine Mercy Group, Olivia Piwowar, says the multicultural make-up of the parishioners and pilgrims is beautiful to witness, and empowering for the Polish community.

‘There’s going to be thousands of people here in church—Australians, people from Indian backgrounds, Sri Lankans, Vietnamese, several Asian cultures,’ she says. ‘The church is going to be absolutely packed full to the brim. It’s so motivating for us.’

On the same day, a procession of pilgrims from the Syro-Malabar community came to the shrine. Many had walked roughly 7 kilometres from their own church in Dandenong as part of a Jubilee pilgrimage.

As they walked, they held up large photos depicting Jesus. Pilgrim Gladwin Thomas explained that they were walking with the Divine Mercy images ‘just to give witness to Christ, because a lot of people were watching us on the way. Making pilgrimage to Divine Mercy chapels is one of the ways to bear witness.

‘You know people will be watching you, and especially in this age, you know a lot of people are very shy or afraid of talking about Jesus and his word,’ he says. ‘We thought giving a public witness, that’s what we have been called for … to give witness to the Christ who said, “I will be with you till the end of the world.”’

Some pilgrims, like those from Gladwin’s Syro-Malabar church, come to the Divine Mercy Shrine every year. But this Jubilee Year, as one of the Archdiocese’s designated Pilgrim Places, the shrine is welcoming even more.

‘I think it’s beautiful that we have the opportunity,’ Olivia says. ‘Every day we can come and have an indulgence—that is something very powerful. For me, that has been quite touching. And I think that in general, for the whole parish community, it’s specifically important, that message of hope, because I feel like the last couple of years we’ve needed hope. We really, really need hope.

‘Since Pope Francis’ passing, I feel like that’s the message that he’s left for us. Like the logo—the Year of Jubilee has that anchor. I think that that symbol is beautiful for us to almost anchor ourselves in this and just really focus on all aspects, hope as well as divine mercy.’

The shrine’s visitors not only spread the message of divine mercy but try to live it too.

Olivia says of her Divine Mercy Group, ‘we focus a lot on the works of divine mercy, the actions, the deeds. What we try to do as a group is help our church community do deeds of divine mercy together.

‘We’re raising money for school children in [Bougainville] Papua New Guinea. They need our help. Some children even do school outside under a tree with the teacher. They don’t have any resources, not even like a table and chair. So hopefully our deed of mercy [will have] follow-on effects, kind of like a chain of dominoes for the whole parish community to get behind this cause. And hopefully we can do some good and spread God’s love and mercy to these children.’

Fr Kamil says this year’s Lenten almsgiving was extended through to Divine Mercy Sunday. They invited the Bishop of Bougainville, Dariusz Kałuża, a longtime missionary in that part of Papua New Guinea, to give a Polish- and English-language Mass on Divine Mercy Sunday. He will take the Lenten alms—more than $21,000—back with him to help establish a school in his diocese.

Divine Mercy, wrote St John Paul II in his 1981 encyclical Dives in Misericordia (Rich in Mercy), is the greatest attribute of God. ‘Mercy is love’s second name.’