Walking with the Saints Podcast | Feast of St. Faustina Kowalska, Patron Saint of the Divine Mercy | October 5
I am sure you know our saint for today – St. Faustina Kowalska, the
nun called Secretary of the Divine Mercy. She was the one to whom Jesus revealed the devotion to the Divine Mercy. The Divine mercy is about God’s compassionate love for humanity and the assistance to remedy mankind’s miseries. St. Faustina was born Helena Kowalska in Glogoweic, Poland on August 25, 1905, third among ten children to a poor but devoted family. She had only three years of formal education, but she was a virtuous and pious girl, who, at an early age wanted to become a nun, because she claimed that Jesus was calling her.
When Helen was 19 years old, she and her sister were attending a
dance party when the suffering Jesus suddenly appeared to her, telling her to join a convent in Warsaw. Helen was deeply moved and sat down as if she was feeling bad. The next morning she went to Warsaw, without notifying her parents and went to pray at the cathedral. A priest met her and entrusted her to the care of a lady parishioner. She knocked from one convent to another, but she was denied entrance due to her poverty and ignorance. But at last, she was accepted by the Mother Superior of the Congregation of Our Lady of Mercy on condition that she pay for her habit and other personal needs. Since she had nothing, she asked to work as a housemaid in a certain family until she was able to earn the needed amount. As promised, she was accepted by the Mother Superior and on April 30, 1926, she received the habit of the Institute and received the name Sr. Maria Faustina in honor of a Christian Roman martyr. In April 1928, she took her first vows. Then she was assigned in different houses of the Congregation sometime as cook, porter or gardener. On February 22, 1931, Jesus appeared in her cell wearing a white garment with two rays emanating from his heart: one red and one white. Jesus asked her to have the image painted with the signature
“Jesus, I trust in You.” But the image was not immediately painted because they had to find a good painter. After her final vows on May 1st, 1933, Sr. Faustina was assigned in Vilnius where she met a holy priest, the Confessor of the community, Fr. Michael Sopocko. Sr. Faustina told in confession her visions, and the priest submitted her to a thorough psychiatric examination to know if she was not having hallucinations. The examination revealed that she was mentally sound. Soon the priest spoke lengthily with her and started to support her visions and told her to write her conversations with Jesus in a diary. He introduced Sr. Faustina to an artist and under her direction, the artist painted the image of the Divine Mercy. It was finished in June 1934. Jesus told Sr.
Faustina that the image must be blessed on the Sunday after Easter and it must be publicly honored. Then in 1935 Jesus taught Sr. Faustina how to pray the Chaplet to the Divine Mercy. It is a prayer to obtain God’s mercy, to trust in the mercy of Jesus Christ, and to be merciful to others. Meanwhile, Sr. Faustina was contemplating to leave her congregation to establish an institute that would be dedicated to the spread and devotion to the Divine Mercy. Her superiors did not allow her to leave. Jesus told Sr. Fasutina to obey her superiors and He would do what was necessary. In fact, this congregation was founded after World War
II with the support of Fr. Sopocko, who wrote its Rules and Constitutions. It is now the Congregation of the Sisters of the Divine Mercy. Some months before her death, Sr. Faustina suffered due to her
fragile health. She spent her remaining days in penance and prayer. She died on October 5, 1938 in Krakaw, Poland and her body lies at the Major Shrine Basilica of Divine Mercy in Krakaw. She was canonized at St. Peter’s Square, Rome on April 30, 2000 by Pope St. John Paul II.
