Saint of the Week – St Faustina Kowalska
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Name: Helena Kowalska: Sister Mary Faustina of the Blessed Sacrament
Born: 25th August 1905 AD; Głogowiec, Russian Empire (Poland)
Died: 5th October 1938 AD; Kraków, Poland
Feast Day: 5th October
Patron Saint of: Divine Mercy
St Faustina is popularly called the ‘Apostle of Divine Mercy’ on account of her instrumental role in fostering devotion to the Divine Mercy as revealed to her by Jesus in a series of mystical apparitions. Born the third of ten children, Helena (as she was named) was raised in a poor but deeply pious family. Helena had just three years of schooling, and at the age of sixteen began working as a housekeeper to help financially support her family. It was during prayer before the Blessed Sacrament at the age of seven that Helena felt the first stirrings of a vocation to the religious life. As she grew into her teens the thought of the religious life grew however her parents were reluctant to accept this on account of their dire financial circumstances. In 1924, at the age of eighteen, Helena attended a dance in the park with her sister, Natalia. Amid the frivolities she was suddenly struck with a vision of Our Lord in His Passion in which He turned to her and asked “How long shall I put up with you and how long will you keep putting Me off?” Overawed, Helena went immediately to the cathedral where Our Lord instructed her to go to Warsaw to enter the convent. In a manner reminiscent of the Jesus’ calling of the Apostles who ‘left everything and followed Him’, Helena went without any possessions or even her parents’ knowledge and took a train to Warsaw. By providence she was directed to the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, who received her charitably but told her that she would need to fulfil the normal requirements before entering. The following year Helena was admitted into the convent whereupon she took as her religious name, Sister Mary Faustina. For the next thirteen years Sr Faustina lived the hidden life of cloistered nun without any clue to indicate the special mission God was about to entrust to her. She dutifully undertook the responsibilities of the religious life, attending to prayer and the various simple roles assigned to her as cook, gardener and porter. Yet interiorly Faustina was growing in spiritual intimacy with Christ, united through her prayers, sufferings and humiliations. Throughout her life Faustina had been ‘troubled’ by visions and auditory locutions of Jesus, Mary, angels and even demons, as revealed in her diaries. Faustina learnt to be always extremely discreet about these supernatural phenomena. Far from making her prideful, when they became known they became occasions of humiliation, as they were usually met with disbelief and scorn, even from the other Sisters in the convent. In all this the Lord was preparing her spiritually for her soon-to-be-revealed mission.
In May 1930 Sr Faustina was transferred to the Sisters’ convent in Płock whereupon she soon began to manifest signs of illness (speculated to be tuberculosis). On Sunday 22nd February 1931, while in her cell, Sr Faustina had a vision of Jesus Christ. He appeared dressed in white, showing His wounded hands and feet. Red and pale rays of light emanated from His heart which could be seen glowing through His garment. Our Lord conveyed to her His desire to have an image of Himself, as the King of Divine Mercy after the manner of His appearing to her, and for this image to be blessed on the octave of Easter. As she was unable to paint herself Faustina was initially perplexed and simply avoided doing anything. When the matter was brought before her Religious Superiors and spiritual director, they were highly sceptical and she began to have doubts about her own sanity. What followed was an intense spiritual and psychological anguish as she vacillated between obedience to the clear instructions given to her in the vision and her desire to obey her superiors. She later wrote: “I shudder at the recollection of this past torture. I would not have believed that one could suffer so, if I had not gone through it myself.”
In this anguish St Faustina found a spiritual confidant and guide in her new spiritual director, Fr Michael Sopocko. Although sceptical at first, he soon came to recognise that Faustina was completely sound of mind, consistent in her accounts of the visions, and possessed heroic virtue in every other facet of her life. He ordered that Faustina undergo a rigorous psychological assessment which confirmed his judgment. With great prudence and discretion Fr Sopocko was able to assist Sr Faustina in carrying out her task. Fr Sopocko, who was a university professor in pastoral theology, was able to convince a fellow lecturer Kazimierowski at the university (who was a talented artist) to paint the image of Divine Mercy under Sr Faustina’s guidance. Although Faustina was initially distressed that the painting didn’t come close to representing the wonder and beauty of the actual vision, Our Lord later made it clear to her that He was satisfied with the image.
In total, St Faustina’s Diary shows that Our Lord appeared to her on at least fourteen separate occasions. The other components of the Divine Mercy message that Jesus revealed to her were the promulgation of the Divine Mercy chaplet, and the honouring of the hour of Christ’s death at 3:00pm as the hour of Divine Mercy. Yet, the most ambitious part of Our Lord’s request was His insistence that a new feast be established on the Octave of Easter designated as ‘Divine Mercy Sunday.’ In her diary St Faustina records the words of Our Lord: “My daughter, tell the whole world about My inconceivable mercy. I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and shelter for all souls, and especially for poor sinners. On that day the very depths of My tender mercy are open. … The Feast of Mercy emerged from My very depths of tenderness. It is My desire that it be solemnly celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter.”
This seemingly impossible request was not realised in the life of St Faustina, though permission had been granted as early as 1935 to have the image of Divine Mercy publicly displayed and blessed at the Easter Octave. However, in God’s mysterious providence it fell to the Polish pope, Karol Wojtyla (better known as Pope Saint John Paul II) to promulgate this new feast. Indeed, the Feast of Divine Mercy was first promulgated at the Mass of the Easter Octave on 30th April 2000, at the very same Mass in St Peter’s Basilica where St Faustina was canonised. St Faustina has the unique distinction of being the first saint to be canonised in the third millennium.
There are many lessons one could draw from the life of St Faustina, not least her surrender to the will of God in all things. For much of her life, Jesus seemed to ask of her the impossible, and she always struggled to accept that God could have chosen such a small, weak and inept instrument to undertake such a colossal mission. St Paul writes in 1Corinthians: “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” (1Cor 1:27-29). Christ would never have entrusted such an important task to an over-qualified egoist, convinced of his own competence: his ego would have gotten in the way. God’s finest instruments are the meek and humble of heart, souls like St Faustina who recognise their own nothingness before God. Against all odds, St Faustina succeeded in her mission to spread devotion to Divine Mercy throughout the whole world, and so it is that in the churches of every nation we can find the faithful venerating the image of Divine Mercy, praying the Divine Mercy chaplet, and saying with heart-felt devotion “Jesus, I Trust in You!” The life of St Faustina should encourage each of us to accept the task God has entrusted to us no matter how impossible it may seem: for with God nothing is impossible (Lk 1:37).
St Faustina Kowalska, pray for us!
