Where Is The Original Divine Mercy Painting

What do Hot Pockets, Harry Connick Jr. and Divine Mercy Accept in Common?

While many pilgrims to World Youth Day will make their way to St. Faustina's convent in Krakow, there is another image that predates the well-known ane hanging on the convent church wall.

I caught up with film manager Daniel diSilva to talk most his moving picture "The Original Prototype of Divine Mercy" that features the original image, the mystery effectually information technology and its theological significance.

The picture show features a broad range of theological experts on Divine Mercy including Fundamental Stanisław Dziwisz, archbishop of Kraków, Bishop Robert Barron, auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles, Fr. Dwight Longenecker and papal biographer George Weigel. Comedian Jim Gaffigan and singer, songwriter Harry Connick Jr. bring some unexpected cultural commentary to the film.

Gress: What was the motivation for this film? You have labored on it for years, traveling to six countries. Why?

diSilva: In 2007, I was invited by a friend to go to the church were the original epitome in Vilnius, Lithuania is. He said, "This is original painting," in his all-time English language. I thought he was trying to tell me that this was an original painting done later. But then I realized that he was saying, "This is the original painting."

Right every bit he said it, it was like when Christ says, "Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing" (Luke iv:21). When my friend said, "This is the original painting" it but dawned on me that I accept never even asked the question "Is there an original painting?" Of grade, St. Faustina and her spiritual managing director Fr. Sopocko worked together on an original painting, then clearly there had to be an original. This left me with a burning curiosity that if this is the original, how come nobody knows most it? Then I realized that the original paradigm of Divine Mercy had never been seen by the world.

Gress: Is the prototype available for buy or are people just able to run across information technology in the film?

Of course many have seen the images that accept been available online past various propagators and devotees of Divine Mercy. Only these images are based on photos necessarily taken from an angle and probably from far away. Because of where the paradigm is hung in the church, there really is no manner to get close to it. It is behind drinking glass up on a wall. At best, you put a camera on a stick, only what happens is the drinking glass reflects and it is non a good photo. Then to correct the photo, it gets digitally tweaked in brightness, contrast, etc… and it ends up looking terrible. So the finished product lacks many details – the halo is not there, the full figure of Christ is not there—and people start to believe that is non a very good painting.

For the documentary, we used an original digital browse of every inch of this higher-than-six-feet tall painting. Every detail shows up on the screen. It is only and so that people can get a full appreciation of this painting and love information technology. The low-cal, the color, the strokes, are all there. These details are important but have been widely obscured until now.

I also think that because this motion-picture show is coming out in the holy twelvemonth of Divine Mercy, that the Holy Spirit was involved somewhere in there.

Incidentally, a bad translation of St. Faustina's diary and the use of the wrong image contributed to the initial prohibition by the Vatican of the devotion to Divine Mercy according to the writings of St. Faustina and the associated paradigm. Pope John Paul, then archbishop of Krakow, Primal Karol Wojtyla , was responsible for correcting the misunderstanding about the translation, and now with this moving-picture show, nosotros are trying to render to the correct image of Divine Mercy.

diSilva: Yes, on our website. Proceeds from all sales will go to foster the development of pilgrimage facilities for the Divine Mercy Shrine in Vilnius, where currently these isn't fifty-fifty a small shop where pilgrims could purchase a prissy re-create of the image.

Gress: What is some of the mystery behind the image? What is new that you can tell u.s. without giving away too much of the movie?

diSilva: The image in Krakow painted by Adolf Hyła was not based upon this painting considering he never saw it. It is based upon a tiny one-inch photograph that a guy had sown into his coat in Siberia. This photo and 149,999 others like it, were commissioned past Blest Fr. Michal Sopocko, St. Faustina's spiritual manager, to get the Divine Mercy bulletin out. Hyła saw the image in Siberia and prayed that if God got him out of the prison camp in Siberia he would spread the devotion. So that is where the other image came from painted ten years afterwards St. Faustina'southward expiry.

Unforunately, Hyła got a lot of details incorrect. Fr. Sopocko asked him to conform his style of painting to the details that St. Faustina thought were important, simply by and then this was a living for Hyła, so he did it his way. The painting that near of us know every bit Divine Mercy is non annihilation like the original mainly because Hyła actually never saw information technology.

Gress: What other image is there that is on par with this? There are similarities between St. Juan Diego's tilma with the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Is this an accurate comparison?

diSilva: I love this question. I have ii things to say: First, zip compares to the original painting of Divine Mercy. Nix. The painting of Our Lady is not in the same category because information technology wasn't painted by a human hand. It is a mystical painting of some other grade. For me, it is like a butterfly fly. What'southward more beautiful the Mona Lisa or a butterfly fly? And the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is colored the same way a butterfly wing would be colored. The fibers themselves are colored. There is no paint on it.

So the images aren't comparable, but I do want to say this: the original of Divine Mercy is different any other painting that my hero Eugeniusz Kazimirowski has always washed. All of his other paintings don't look like this stylistically.

When theologians get their easily on the real painting they are going to see some stuff in that painting that have never been seen earlier. Similar a Caravaggio, you lot could exercise a course on it. At that place is something in every inch (and then in that way information technology does compare to the tilma), but the fact that it doesn't compare to any other Kazimirowski images might be some indication that like Mary did with the Our Lady of Guadalupe – she arranged it -- we might as well say that Christ himself may have guided the manus Kazimirowski.

Gress: Similar to writers of Scripture where God guided the human hand?

diSilva: Exactly.

Gress: Speaking of theologians, I dearest the inclusion of the well-known theologians Jim Gaffigan and Harry Connick Jr. (who, of course, are non really theologians). Tell me near their role in the movie?

diSilva: (laughing) Gaffigan has been living a very public life every bit a father of five and a Catholic. He has a devotion to Divine Mercy and has read St. Faustina'southward diary conspicuously through to the terminate. It is a hard book to go through, just there is some stuff in the terminate that is actually cool that changes everything. Gaffigan new about some of these things. So that says to me that he actually got through this long volume.

Gress: So one night after giving his "hot pocket schtick" he went home and dove into St. Faustina'due south diary? What a juxtaposition!

diSilva: (laughter)

Gress: Where do you see this going long term? Practice you have other projects in the works?

diSilva: Currently, I am traveling around the country presenting something I call "The Director'south Cutting" of the film, which is an elaboration of the history. I travel with a full-size on-canvas replica of the Original Epitome of Divine Mercy. I am likewise transporting a small gallery of art every bit well as some priceless holy relics as I motility around the country. In that location is a lot more to the story than we could include into an 60 minutes and 50 minute pic. Proceeds from these presentations are going to the non-existent pilgrimage middle that I would love to see built in Vilnius to allow people to visit the original image.

I'm as well writing a book that tells the rest of the story. I desire to tell more of the story most why this painting has been lost.

Ultimately, my goal is to bring this image to its proper place of primacy in the devotion of Divine Mercy. And this isn't based on any personal preference, creative or otherwise. Every bit you lot can see in the documentary, Fr. Sopocko was present for the painting of the prototype, and heard every particular given past St. Faustina to the artist Eugeniusz Kazimirowski. Fr. Sopocko considered information technology important that people venerate this image because it most conforms to the Faustinian description of the Merciful Jesus.