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She immediately went to Warsaw and actively sought a convent that would accept her. This proved to be the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, where she made her fi rst vows in 1928. The calling of the order was the care and education of diffi cult women and girls and Faustina's religious life was very exhausting. She was transferred from one house to another doing all kinds of different jobs, sometimes cooking for up to two hundred people. One of the most diffi cult things for her was the lack of time she had for contemplative prayer. Nevertheless she developed a startling ability of being able to read souls and see other people's interior sufferings and trials without being told of them. Never strong, within a short time she became ill and was sent to a sanatorium in Krakow. Throughout her religious life she suffered terrible depressions and endured a dark night of the soul. On 22nd February 1931 Jesus appeared in a vision to Faustina and asked her to paint a picture according to what she saw, with the signature "Jesus I trust in you". This was later to be displayed at the Eastern Gate in Vilnius during the celebrations of the JubileeYear of the Redemption of the World. A simple religious, she was encouraged by her principal confessor, Fr Joseph Andrasz SJ and her spiritual director, Rev Professor Michael Sopocko, who recognised the remarkable richness and authenticity of her interior life. It was Fr Sopocko who was to become the champion of Faustina's mission as the Apostle of Divine Mercy. He began to prepare the ground for the new devotion by introducing it gradually into his pastoral practices. The key to the devotion is the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. Jesus gave Faustina the formula for this and told her that whoever recited it would receive great mercy at the hour of death. Later in another revelation Jesus asked for the establishment of a Feast of Divine Mercy to be celebrated on the second Sunday after Easter. He told her souls who will go to confession on that day and receive Holy Communion will obtain complete forgiveness of sins. The Chaplet of Mercy is to be prayed for nine days starting on Good Friday to prepare for the Feast of Mercy. He dictated to Faustina specific intentions for each day of this Novena. Then Jesus told Faustina of the Hour of Great Mercy. He asked her to immerse herself in prayer at three o'clock each day, to make the Stations of the Cross if possible or visit the Blessed Sacrament or if she was unable to do either, pray where she happened to be if only for a brief moment. Closely associated with this Feast are the three degrees of mercy - deed, word and prayer. Like many personal revelations of this kind, things did not go smoothly, which Faustina herself foresaw writing prophetically in her diary in February 1935, "There will come a time when this work that God is demanding so very much, will be utterly undone. And then God will act with great power which will give evidence of its authenticity. It will be a new splendour for the Church although it has been dormant in it from long ago… When will this happen? I do not know. How long will it last? I do not know". Faustina died in 1938, aged only 33. By this time the devotion had spread and the convent where she lived had become the centre of a shrine to the Divine Mercy. In 1958 the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office prohibited the spreading and practice of the Divine Mercy in the form given by Faustina. But 20 years later In 1978, this prohibition was revoked and on 30th April 2000 Faustina was canonised. Brenda O'Grady
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Helena
Maria Kowalski, better known under her religious name of Faustina,
was born on 5th August 1905 in the village of Glogowiec in Poland.
The third of ten children she came from a poor but deeply religious
peasant family. She only had three years of schooling and at 16 became
a maid. She had considered the religious life but her parents had
refused to give permission. But in 1923 she had a vision of Jesus
who said, "How long will I put up with you and how long will
you keep putting me off ".
