Saint Faustina Helena Kowalska
was born in the village of
Glogowiec 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 1930s, Saint 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.
Convinced of her own unworthiness, and terrified at the thought of
trying to write anything, she nonetheless began keeping a diary in 1934 in
obedience to the express wishes of her spiritual director, and then of Our
Lord Himself. For four years she recorded divine revelations and mystical
experiences, together with her own inmost thoughts, insights, and prayers.
The result is a book of some 600 printed pages that, in simple language,
repeats and clarifies the gospel story of God's love for His people,
emphasizing, above all, the need to trust in His loving action in all the
aspects of our lives. It also reveals an extraordinary example of how to
respond to God's mercy and manifest it to others.
Saint Faustina's spiritual life was based on deep humility, purity of
intention, and loving obedience to the will of God in imitation of the
virtues of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
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 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 Saint Faustina received is now being spread
throughout the world; she was canonized by the Church on April 30, 2000;
and her diary, Divine Mercy in My Soul, has become the handbook for
devotion to The Divine Mercy. She would not have been surprised, for she
had been told that the message of God's mercy would spread through her
writings for the great benefit of souls.
In a prophetic statement she had declared: I feel certain that my
mission will not come to an end upon my death, but will begin. O doubting
souls, I will draw aside for you the veils of heaven to convince you of
God's goodness (Diary 281).
Your daily reading from St. Faustina's diary
November 19.
After Communion today, Jesus told me how
much He desires to come to human hearts. I desire to unite Myself with
human souls; My great delight is to unite Myself with souls. Know, My
daughter, that when I come to a human heart in Holy Communion, My hands
are full of all kinds of graces which I want to give to the soul. But
souls do not even pay any attention to Me; they leave Me to Myself and
busy themselves with other things. Oh, how sad I am that souls do not
recognize Love! They treat Me as a dead object. I answered Jesus, "O
Treasure of my heart, the only object of my love and entire delight of my
soul, I want to adore You in my heart as You are adored on the throne of
Your eternal glory. My love wants to make up to You at least in part for
the coldness of so great a number of souls. Jesus, behold my heart which
is for You a dwelling place to which no one else has entry. You alone
repose in it as in a beautiful garden.
(1385)
All the good that is in me is due to Holy Communion. I owe everything to
it. I feel that this holy fire has transformed me completely. Oh, how
happy I am to be a dwelling place for You, O Lord! My heart is a temple in
which You dwell continually... (1392)
March 14
Jesus, I trust in You.
Novena to The Divine Mercy
which Jesus
instructed me to write down and make before the Feast of Mercy. It begins
on Good Friday.
I desire that during these nine days you bring souls to the fountain of My
mercy, that they may draw therefrom strength and refreshment and whatever
grace they need in the hardships of life, and especially at the hour of
death.
On each day you will bring to My Heart a different group of souls, and you
will immerse them in this ocean of My mercy, and I will bring all these
souls into the house of My Father. You will do this in this life and in
the next. I will deny nothing to any soul whom you will bring to the fount
of My mercy. On each day you will beg My Father, on the strength of My
bitter Passion, for graces for these souls.
I answered, "Jesus, I do not know how to make this novena or which souls
to bring first into Your Most Compassionate Heart." Jesus replied that He
would tell me which souls to bring each day into His Heart. (1209)
March 26
You expired, Jesus, but the source of life gushed forth
for souls, and the ocean of mercy opened up for the whole world. O Fount
of Life, unfathomable Divine Mercy, envelop the whole world and empty
Yourself out upon us. (1319)
At three o'clock, implore My mercy, especially for sinners; and, if only for a brief moment, immerse yourself in My
Passion, particularly in My abandonment at the moment of agony.
This is the hour of great mercy for the whole world. I will
allow you to enter into My mortal sorrow. In this hour, I will
refuse nothing to the soul that makes a request of Me in virtue of
My Passion.... (1320)
As I was meditating on the sin of the Angels and their
immediate punishment, I asked Jesus why the Angels had been punished as
soon as they had sinned. I heard a voice: Because of their profound
knowledge of God. No person on earth, even though a great saint,
has such knowledge of God as an Angel has. Nevertheless, to me
who am so miserable, You have shown Your mercy, O God, and this, time and
time again. You carry me in the bosom of Your mercy and forgive me every
time that I ask Your forgiveness with a contrite heart. (1332)
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