Michał Sopoćko

Life

He was born in 1888 in Juszewszczyzna (also known as Nowosady) near Valozhyn in present-day Belarus. He entered Vilnius Priest Seminary in 1910 and was ordained in 1914. He was a priest in Vilnius (1914–1918), then a chaplain in the army in Warsaw and Vilnius during World War I. After obtaining his doctorate in theology in 1926 he became the spiritual director at the seminary in Vilnius. and 1928 professor of pastoral theology at Stefan Batory University in Vilnius.

Divine Mercy

Father Sopoćko was very supportive of the Divine Mercy devotion of Faustina Kowalska and in her diary (Notebook V, item 1238) she stated: "This priest is a great soul, entirely filled with God." Since 1931 Faustina had been trying (without success) to find someone to paint the Divine Mercy image until Sopoćko became her confessor in the middle of 1933. By January 1934 Sopocko arranged for the artist Eugeniusz Kazimirowski (who was also a professor at the university) to paint the image.

On Friday April 26, 1935 Sopoćko delivered the first sermon ever on the Divine Mercy - and Faustina attended the sermon. The first Mass during which the Divine Mercy image was displayed was on April 28, 1935, the Divine Mercy Sunday (the first after Easter). Sopoćko managed to obtain permission to place the Divine Mercy image within the Gate of Dawn in Vilnius as he celebrated the Mass that Sunday.

In the summer of 1936 Sopoćko wrote the first brochure on the Divine Mercy devotion and obtained the imprimatur of Archbishop Jałbrzykowski for it. The brochure carried the Divine Mercy image on the cover.

Congregation of Sisters of Merciful Jesus

In 1942, during World War II Sopoćko and other professors and students had to go into hiding near Vilnius for about two years. However, he used this time to establish a new religious congregation based on the Divine Mercy messages reported by Faustina Kowalska. After the War, Sopoćko wrote the constitution for the congregation and helped the formation of what is now Zgromadzenie Sióstr Jezusa Miłosiernego.

In an entry in her diary on February 8, 1935, (Notebook I, item 378) Faustina had written that the Divine Mercy devotion would be suppressed for some time after her death, but would be accepted again, although Sopoćko would suffer for it. In 1959 the Vatican forbade the Divine Mercy devotion and censured Sopoćko. But in 1965 Karol Wojtyła, then Archbishop of Kraków and later Pope John Paul II opened a new investigation and submitted documents in 1968, which resulted in the reversal of the ban in 1978.

After the Second World War, when the boundaries of Poland changed so much, Sopoćko left Vilnius. Until 1962 he has been a professor of pastoral theology at the seminary in Białystok. That time he wrote a book Miłosierdzie Boga w dziełach Jego (Mercy of God in His works) in four volumes. He died on February 15, 1975 in Białystok, Poland, and was buried there. In 1988 his remains were transferred to the Church of Divine Mercy in Białostoczek.

Quote

The decisive factor in obtaining God’s Mercy is trust. Trust is the expectation of someone’s help. It does not constitute a separate virtue, but is an essential condition of the virtue of hope, and an integral part of the virtues of fortitude and generosity. Because trust springs from faith, it strengthens hope and love, and is, moreover, linked up, in one way or another, with the moral virtues. It may, therefore, be called the basis on which the theological virtues unite with the moral. The moral virtues, originally natural, become supernatural if we practice them with trust in God’s help.

Veneration

His case for beatification was started at the Vatican in 1987. In 2004, Pope John Paul II issued a decree on the virtues of Father Sopoćko. In December 2007, Pope Benedict XVI approved of a miracle through his intercession. His solemn beatification took place on Sunday September 28, 2008 at the Sanctuary of Divine Mercy in Białystok.