Brendan O’Neill was a very successful businessman who comes from a very religious family. His mother, in fact, had always a great devotion to Divine Mercy and was a great friend of Fr. Berchmans Walsh, who was the first priest to promote Divine Mercy in Ireland.

However, because of his business commitments, Brendan never really had much time for religion himself. He had heard a lot about the devotion to the Divine Mercy from his mother and when he had time for a prayer he found himself praying to St.Faustina to intercede for him in different matters.

He had received a gift of the diary of Saint Faustina and intended to read it when he had time, but he never really got around to reading it. Brendan lives in the West of Ireland but his business affairs meant he had to travel a lot and he put the diary in his car with the intention of reading it in some hotel room some night when he had time on his hands.

This never seemed to happen for he was always looking over some documents or other at night, connected with the next days business, when staying away from home.

One day when on business in Dublin his car was stolen with the diary of St. Faustina in an overnight bag with a lot of other items and personal papers. Besides this bag he had his golf clubs and other golf apparel as well. When Brendan first was given the diary, for some reason that he could not explain, he put his name on the inside cover.

Three days later, a man that came from the same town as Brendan, but had been living in Dublin for a some time, phoned Brendan to say that a bag had been thrown into his back garden and the only item that was in the bag was a book with Brendan’s name on it. The book of course was the diary, but the extraordinary thing was, that in an estate of hundreds of houses, this house was chosen by the thieves to dispose of the bag, and the only man in the whole estate that knew who Brendan O’Neil was.

When Brendan got the bag with the diary in it back from the man, he then vowed to read it, as he felt he must be meant to read it. But again business intervened and the diary was left on the seat in his car with the intention of reading it at the next opportunity, which never seemed to happen.

One night Brendan parked in a public car park. When he returned his car had been stolen again. He reported it to the Guards and some days later they called on him to say they had found it, but it was completely burned out. Not only was the car burned to a cinder, but everything that was in it was burned to a cinder as well, except for one item which they said was totally unbelievable, a book that they found on the remains of a seat that had not a screed of upholstery left on it, and nothing else in the car was recognisable.

The Guards could not believe that any book could survive in what they said must have been a fire that raged at 2000 degrees. Brendan had a number of books and papers in the car, all of which had been incinerated in the fire, but there on the remains of a seat was the diary of St. Faustina, burned around the edges which meant it had caught fire like everything else, but the fire stopped when it reached the text, which was the message of Divine Mercy.

As Brendan stared at the burned wreck he thought he heard the words “How long are you going to keep me waiting”.

Brendan became a seminarian shortly after and will be ordained a priest  in two years time.