Saint Faustina
APOSTLE OF THE DIVINE MERCY
20th-century Polish nun was chosen by Jesus to remind the world of the mystery of God’s merciful love.
St Mary Faustina Kowalska was born on 25 August 1905 in Glogowiec, Poland,
to a poor, religious family of peasants, the third of 10 children. She
was baptized with the name Helena in the parish church of Swinice Warckle.
From a very tender age she stood out because of her love of prayer, work,
obedience and her sensitivity to the poor. At the age of nine she made
her First Holy Communion and attended school for three years. At the age
of 16 she left home and went to work as a housekeeper in Aleksandrow,
Lodz and Ostrowek in order to support herself and to help her parents.
At the age of seven she had already felt the first stirrings of a religious
vocation. After finishing school, she wanted to enter the convent but
her parents would not give her permission. Called during a vision of the
suffering Christ, on 1 August 1925 she entered the Congregation of the
Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy and took the name Sr Mary Faustina. She lived
in the congregation for 13 years, residing in Krakow, Plock and Vilnius,
where she worked as a cook, gardener and porter.
Externally, nothing revealed her rich mystical interior life. She zealously
performed her tasks and faithfully observed the rule of religious life.
She was recollected, yet very natural, serene and full of kindness and
disinterested love for her neighbour. Although her life was apparently
insignificant and monotonous, she hid within herself an extraordinary
union with God.
It is the mystery of God's mercy, which she contemplated in the word of
God as well as in her everyday activities, that forms the basis of her
spirituality. The process of contemplating and getting to know the mystery
of God's mercy helped to develop within Sr Mary Faustina the attitude
of childlike trust in God and of mercy towards her neighbour. "0 my Jesus,
each of your saints reflects one of your virtues; I desire to reflect
your compassionate heart, full of mercy; I want to glorify it. Let your
mercy, 0 Jesus, be impressed upon my heart and soul like a seal, and this
will be my badge in this and the future life" (Diary 1242). Sr Faustina
was a faithful daughter of the Church. Conscious of her role in the Church,
she cooperated with God's mercy in the task of saving lost souls. At the
specific request of the Lord Jesus and following his example, she made
a sacrifice of her own life for this very goal. Her spiritual life was
also distinguished by a love of the Eucharist and a deep devotion to the
Mother of Mercy.
The years she spent in the convent were filled with extraordinary gifts,
such as revelations, visions, hidden stigmata, participation in the Passion
of the Lord, bilocation, the reading of human souls, prophecy and the
rare gift of mystical espousal and marriage. Her living relationship with
God, the Blessed Mother, the angels, the saints, the souls in purgatory—with
the entire supernatural world—was as real for her as the world she perceived
with the senses. In spite of being so richly endowed with extraordinary
graces, Sr Mary Faustina knew that they do not in fact constitute sanctity.
In her Diary she wrote: "Neither graces, nor revelations, nor raptures,
nor gifts granted to a soul make it perfect, but rather the intimate union
of the soul with God. These gifts are merely ornaments of the soul, but
constitute neither its essence nor its perfection. My sanctity and perfection
consist in the close union of my will with the will of God" (Diary 1107).
The Lord Jesus chose Sr Mary Faustina as the apostle and "secretary" of
his mercy, so that she could tell the world about his great message. "In
the Old Covenant", he said to her, "I sent prophets wielding thunderbolts
to my people. Today I am sending you with my mercy to the people of the
whole world. I do not want to punish aching mankind, but I desire to heal
it, pressing it to my merciful Heart" (Diary 1588).
The mission of Sr Mary Faustina consists in three tasks:
—reminding the world of the truth of our faith revealed in the Holy Scripture
about the merciful love of God towards every human being; —entreating
God's mercy for the whole world and particularly for sinners, among others
through the practice of new forms of devotion to the Divine Mercy presented
by the Lord Jesus, such as: the veneration of the image of the Divine
Mercy with the inscription: "Jesus, I trust in you"; the feast of the
Divine Mercy celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter; chaplet to the
Divine Mercy and prayer at the Hour of Mercy (3 p.m.). The Lord Jesus
attached great promises to the above forms of devotion, provided one entrusted
one's life to God and practised active love of neighbour; —initiating
the apostolic movement of the Divine Mercy, whose task is to proclaim
and entreat God's mercy for the world and to strive for Christian perfection,
following the precepts laid down by Sr Mary Faustina. The precepts in
question require the faithful to have an attitude of childlike trust in
God, expressed in fulfilling his will, and an attitude of mercy toward
one's neighbour. Today millions of people throughout the world are involved
in this Church movement: it includes religious congregations, lay institutes,
religious, confraternities, associations, various communities of apostles
of the Divine Mercy, as well as individuals who take up the tasks which
the Lord Jesus communicated to them through Sr Mary Faustina.
Sr Mary Faustina's mission was recorded in her Diary, which she kept at
the specific request of the Lord Jesus and her confessors. In it she faithfully
wrote down all of the Lord's wishes and described the encounters between
her soul and him. "Secretary of my most profound mystery", the Lord said
to Sr Faustina, "know that your task is to write down everything that
I make known to you about my mercy, for the benefit of those who by reading
these things will be comforted in their souls and will have the courage
to approach me" (Diary 1693). Sr Mary Faustina's work sheds light on the
mystery of the Divine Mercy. It delights not only simple, uneducated people,
but also scholars, who look upon it as an additional source of theological
research.
Sr Mary Faustina, consumed by tuberculosis and innumerable sufferings,
which she accepted as a voluntary sacrifice for sinners, died in Krakow
at the age of 33 on 5 October 1938, with a reputation for spiritual maturity
and a mystical union with God. Her reputation for holiness grew, as did
the devotion to the Divine Mercy and the graces received from God through
her intercession. Pope John Paul II beatified Sr Faustina on 18 April
1993. Her mortal remains rest at the Shrine of the Divine Mercy in Krakow-Lagiewniki.
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Taken from: L'Osservatore Romano
Weekly Edition in English
3 May 2000, page 2
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