St Faustina Kowalska

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 re-emphasizing God's plan of mercy for the world. It was not a glamorous prospect. Her entire life, in imitation of Christ's, 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. 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. For many years her diary was condemned, and even the image of Jesus as she portrayed was abolished. However everything changed when Pope John Paul II was elected Pope. Her case was re-opened and by the year 2000, the Divine Mercy Sunday was established and to be celebrated the Sunday after Easter. On the same day in the year 2000, St Faustina was declared a Saint.