The first ‘Hospice for the Dying’ in Lithuania, built by our charity, was regarded as a historic national event. National television channels and media journalists from across Lithuania and Poland were there to record the occasion for public broadcast.
It seems extraordinary that, until HUDT ‘Divine Mercy in Action’ built this hospice, there had been no hospice or palliative care centre in the country. It took an Irish charity to open the first hospice here, which was appreciated by the Irish Government by having the Irish ambasador cut the ribbon. It was as a result of a plea from the ‘Sisters of Merciful Jesus’ (the community of sisters founded on the request of Jesus to St.Faustina) caring for the sick and dying elderly people of Vilnius, crying out for a place of cleanliness, security and warmth for poor souls to live out their last years in peace and dignity.
HUDT or ‘Divine Mercy in Action’ answered that call and today there is one of the most modern palliative care centres in Europe now opened for these people. The place chosen to do this was an old abandoned Vincentian Convent on the grounds of the artist who painted the original image of Divine Mercy. The site was donated by the Archbishop of Vilnius, Cardinal Backis, to the Sisters of Merciful Jesus.
The astonishing and maybe miraculous happening for us, a ‘Divine Mercy Apostolate’ , was that the site was on ground where Saint Faustina and Blessed Michael Sopocko walked to instruct the artist in the painting of the image. These two ‘Apostles of Divine Mercy’ chosen by God to bring the message of Divine Mercy to the world, had met together over a period of more than six months with the artist, to supervise the painting of the image that Our Lord had instructed Saint Faustina to have painted.
The image that Christ wanted to make available to the world, for all to venerate and seek His Divine Mercy. It was also on this ground that this congregation that Jesus asked for was founded.
The community that was to become the ‘Sisters of Merciful Jesus’. Here they will work and bring God’s mercy in deed, word and prayer to the poor elderly homeless of Vilnius.
It is one of “Divine Mercy in Action’s” greatest works, in continuation of Christ’s request to St. Faustina and Blessed Sopocko to bring His mercy to those in need.
