St Faustina Kowalska (1905-1938) |
Saint Faustina was born Helena Kowalska in a small village west of Lodz,
Poland on August 25, 1905. She was the third of ten children. When she was
almost twenty, she entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of
Mercy, whose members devote themselves to the care and education of troubled young
women. The following year she received her religious habit and was given the
name Sister Maria Faustina, to which she added, "of the Most Blessed
Sacrament", as was permitted by her congregation's custom. In the 1930's,
Sister Faustina received from the Lord a message of mercy that she was told to
spread throughout the world. She was asked to become the apostle and secretary
of God's mercy, a model of how to be merciful to others, and an instrument for
reemphasizing God's plan of mercy for the world. It was not a glamorous
prospect.
Her entire life, in imitation of Christ's, was to be a sacrifice ‑ a
life lived for others. At the Divine Lord's request, she willingly offered her
personal sufferings in union with Him to atone for the sins of others; in her daily
life she was to become a doer of mercy, bringing joy and peace to others, and
by writing about God's mercy, she was to encourage others to trust in Him and
thus prepare the world for His coming again. Her special devotion to Mary
Immaculate and to the sacraments of Eucharist and Reconciliation gave her the
strength to bear all her sufferings as an offering to God on behalf of the
Church and those in special need, especially great sinners and the dying.
She wrote and suffered in secret, with only her spiritual director Fr Michael Sopocko, and
some of her superiors aware that anything special was taking place in her life.
After her death from tuberculosis in 1938, even her closest associates were
amazed as they began to discover what great sufferings and deep mystical experiences
had been given to this Sister of theirs, who had always been so cheerful and
humble. She had taken deeply into her heart, God's gospel command to "be
merciful even as your heavenly Father is merciful" as well as her
confessor's directive that she should act in such a way that everyone who came
in contact with her would go away joyful. The message of mercy that Sister
Faustina received is now being spread throughout the world; her diary, Divine
Mercy in my Soul, has become the handbook for devotion to the Divine Mercy. However, until Pope St John Paul II was elected Pope, her writings and her devotion were condemned by the church, and were only recognized by her compatriot Pope, who eventually canonized here in April 2000, on the same day when Divine Mercy Sunday was instituted to be celebrated on the Sunday after Easter.
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