Parish History

To become a member of Mother of Divine Mercy Parish, please print and fill out this form and return it to the parish office or drop it in the collection basket at Mass at any of our churches. Welcome to the parish!

Initially, Mother of Divine Mercy Parish consisted of three historic Roman Catholic Churches in Detroit which were merged into one parish on July 1, 2013. St. Josaphat was clustered with Sweetest Heart of Mary in June of 2003, and in May of 2004 St. Joseph was added to the cluster. In 2014, the three church merged to form one parish under the patronage of the Mother of Divine Mercy. In October of 2016, the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest began ministry at St. Joseph Church. In turn, St. Joseph left Mother of Divine Mercy Parish but St. Josaphat and Sweetest Heart of Mary remain together. Our Parish Office is located at the Sweetest Heart of Mary Rectory.

The Polish icon depicted above, which resides in Sweetest Heart of Mary Church, is called Mother of Mercy or Ostra Brama (Gate of Dawn). The icon was likely painted in Vilnius, Lithuania around 1630. The icon was placed over the Gate of Dawn in Vilnius, one of nine gates that existed at the time. Around 1671, the icon was covered with silver and gold. In 1927 when the Chapel of Our Lady of Ostra Brama was renovated, by a special command of Pope Pius XI the image was given the title Mater Misericordiae (Mother of Mercy), and it was adorned with new crowns which were exact copies of the old crowns.

Interestingly, when Saint Faustina Kowalska first received revelations from Our Lord, she was living in a monastery in Vilnius. In April of 1935, the first image of the Divine Mercy, painted under the direction of St. Faustina, was unveiled and publicly venerated in the Chapel of Our Lady of Ostra Brama. Moreover, paragraph 529 of Saint Faustina's diary (Divine Mercy in My Soul) describes how the Ostra Brama icon spoke to her when she was visiting the chapel on November 15, 1935.

Both of our churches have the image of the Divine Mercy. In the Jubilee Year 2000, St. Pope John Paul II canonized St. Faustina and established Divine Mercy Sunday as a feast day for the universal Church on the Octave Sunday of Easter.