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ST. MARY FAUSTINA
KOWALSKA
1905-1938
Sister Mary
Faustina, an apostle of the Divine Mercy, belongs today to the group
of the most popular and well-known saints of the Church. Through her
the Lord Jesus communicates to the world the great message of God's
mercy and reveals the pattern of Christian perfection based on trust
in God and on the attitude of mercy toward one's neighbors.
She was born on August 25, 1905 in Gogowiec in Poland of a poor and
religious family of peasants, the third of ten children. She was
baptized with the name Helena in the parish Church of Đwinice
Warckie. From a very tender age she stood out because of her love of
prayer, work, obedience, and also her sensitivity to the poor. At
the age of nine she made her first Holy Communion living this moment
very profoundly in her awareness of the presence of the Divine Guest
within her soul. She attended school for three years. At the age of
sixteen she left home and went to work as a housekeeper in
Aleksandrów, ódď and Ostrówek in order to find the means of
supporting herself and of helping 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 August 1, 1925 she entered the
Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy and took the name
Sister Mary Faustina. She lived in the Congregation for thirteen
years and lived in several religious houses. She spent time at
Kraków, Pock 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 and at the same time very
natural, serene and full of kindness and disinterested love for her
neighbor. Although her life was apparently insignificant, monotonous
and dull, she hid within herself an extraordinary union with God.
It is the mystery of the Mercy of God which she contemplated in the
word of God as well as in the everyday activities of her life that
forms the basis of her spirituality. The process of contemplating
and getting to know the mystery of God's mercy helped develop within
Sr. Mary Faustina the attitude of child-like trust in God as well as
mercy toward the neighbors. O 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, O 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). Sister Faustina was
a faithful daughter of the Church which she loved like a Mother and
a Mystic Body of Jesus Christ. 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 and following the example of the Lord Jesus,
she made a sacrifice of her own life for this very goal. In her
spiritual life she also distinguished herself with a love of the
Eucharist and a deep devotion to the Mother of Mercy.
The years she had spent at the convent were filled with
extraordinary gifts, such as: revelations, visions, hidden stigmata,
participation in the Passion of the Lord, the gift of bilocation,
the reading of human souls, the gift of prophecy, or the rare gift
of mystical engagement and marriage. The living relationship with
God, the Blessed Mother, the Angels, the Saints, the souls in
Purgatory — with the entire supernatural world — was as equally real
for her as was the world she perceived with her 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 Sister Mary Faustina consists in 3 tasks:
– reminding the world of the truth of our faith revealed in the Holy
Scripture about the merciful love of God toward 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 practiced active love of one's neighbor.
– The third task in Sr. Mary Faustina's mission consists in
initiating the apostolic movement of the Divine Mercy which
undertakes the task of proclaiming and entreating God's mercy for
the world and strives for Christian perfection, following the
precepts laid down by the Blessed Sr. Mary Faustina. The precepts in
question require the faithful to display an attitude of child-like
trust in God which expresses itself in fulfilling His will, as well
as in the attitude of mercy toward one's neighbors. Today, this
movement within the Church involves millions of people throughout
the world; it comprises religious congregations, lay institutes,
religious, brotherhoods, associations, various communities of
apostles of the Divine Mercy, as well as individual people who take
up the tasks which the Lord Jesus communicated to them through Sr.
Mary Faustina.
The mission of the Blessed Sr. Mary Faustina was recorded in her
Diary which she kept at the specific request of the Lord Jesus and
her confessors. In it, she recorded faithfully all of the Lord
Jesus' wishes and also described the encounters between her soul and
Him. Secretary of My most profound mystery — the Lord Jesus 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). In an extraordinary way,
Sr. Mary Faustina's work sheds light on the mystery of the Divine
Mercy. It delights not only the simple and uneducated people, but
also scholars who look upon it as an additional source of
theological research. The Diary has been translated into many
languages, among others, English, German, Italian, Spanish, French,
Portuguese, Arabic, Russian, Hungarian, Czech and Slovak.
Sister Mary Faustina, consumed by tuberculosis and by innumerable
sufferings which she accepted as a voluntary sacrifice for sinners,
died in Krakow at the age of just thirty three on October 5, 1938
with a reputation for spiritual maturity and a mystical union with
God. The reputation of the holiness of her life grew as did the cult
to the Divine Mercy and the graces she obtained from God through her
intercession. In the years 1965-67, the investigative Process into
her life and heroic virtues was undertaken in Krakow and in the year
1968, the Beatification Process was initiated in Rome. The latter
came to an end in December 1992. On April 18, 1993 our Holy Father
John Paul II raised Sister Faustina to the glory of the altars. Sr.
Mary Faustina's remains rest at the Sanctuary of the Divine Mercy in
Kraków.
HOMILY OF THE
HOLY FATHER, POPE JOHN PAUL II
MASS IN ST PETER'S SQUARE FOR THE CANONIZATION
OF SR MARY FAUSTINA KOWALSKA
Sunday, 30 April 2000
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Jesus, I trust in You
Photo used with permission
© 2005 Marians of the Immaculate Conception |
1. "Confitemini
Domino quoniam bonus, quoniam in saeculum misericordia eius"; "Give
thanks to the Lord for he is good; his steadfast love endures for
ever" (Ps 118: 1). So the Church sings on the Octave of Easter, as
if receiving from Christ's lips these words of the Psalm; from the
lips of the risen Christ, who bears the great message of divine
mercy and entrusts its ministry to the Apostles in the Upper Room:
"Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send
you.... Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any,
they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained"
(Jn 20: 21-23).
Before speaking these words, Jesus shows his hands and his side. He
points, that is, to the wounds of the Passion, especially the wound
in his heart, the source from which flows the great wave of mercy
poured out on humanity. From that heart Sr Faustina Kowalska, the
blessed whom from now on we will call a saint, will see two rays of
light shining from that heart and illuminating the world: "The two
rays", Jesus himself explained to her one day, "represent blood and
water" (Diary, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, p. 132).
2. Blood and water! We immediately think of the testimony given by
the Evangelist John, who, when a solider on Calvary pierced Christ's
side with his spear, sees blood and water flowing from it (cf. Jn
19: 34). Moreover, if the blood recalls the sacrifice of the Cross
and the gift of the Eucharist, the water, in Johannine symbolism,
represents not only Baptism but also the gift of the Holy Spirit
(cf. Jn 3: 5; 4: 14; 7: 37-39).
Divine Mercy reaches human beings through the heart of Christ
crucified: "My daughter, say that I am love and mercy personified",
Jesus will ask Sr Faustina (Diary, p. 374). Christ pours out this
mercy on humanity though the sending of the Spirit who, in the
Trinity, is the Person-Love. And is not mercy love's "second name"
(cf. Dives in misericordia, n. 7), understood in its deepest and
most tender aspect, in its ability to take upon itself the burden of
any need and, especially, in its immense capacity for forgiveness?
Today my joy is truly great in presenting the life and witness of Sr
Faustina Kowalska to the whole Church as a gift of God for our time.
By divine Providence, the life of this humble daughter of Poland was
completely linked with the history of the 20th century, the century
we have just left behind. In fact, it was between the First and
Second World Wars that Christ entrusted his message of mercy to her.
Those who remember, who were witnesses and participants in the
events of those years and the horrible sufferings they caused for
millions of people, know well how necessary was the message of
mercy.
Jesus told Sr Faustina: "Humanity will not find peace until it turns
trustfully to divine mercy" (Diary, p. 132). Through the work of the
Polish religious, this message has become linked for ever to the
20th century, the last of the second millennium and the bridge to
the third. It is not a new message but can be considered a gift of
special enlightenment that helps us to relive the Gospel of Easter
more intensely, to offer it as a ray of light to the men and women
of our time.
3. What will the years ahead bring us? What will man's future on
earth be like? We are not given to know. However, it is certain that
in addition to new progress there will unfortunately be no lack of
painful experiences. But the light of divine mercy, which the Lord
in a way wished to return to the world through Sr Faustina's charism,
will illumine the way for the men and women of the third millennium.
However, as the Apostles once did, today too humanity must welcome
into the upper room of history the risen Christ, who shows the
wounds of his Crucifixion and repeats: Peace be with you! Humanity
must let itself be touched and pervaded by the Spirit given to it by
the risen Christ. It is the Spirit who heals the wounds of the
heart, pulls down the barriers that separate us from God and divide
us from one another, and at the same time, restores the joy of the
Father's love and of fraternal unity.
4. It is important then that we accept the whole message that comes
to us from the word of God on this Second Sunday of Easter, which
from now on throughout the Church will be called "Divine Mercy
Sunday". In the various readings, the liturgy seems to indicate the
path of mercy which, while re-establishing the relationship of each
person with God, also creates new relations of fraternal solidarity
among human beings. Christ has taught us that "man not only receives
and experiences the mercy of God, but is also called "to practise
mercy' towards others: "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall
obtain mercy' (Mt 5: 7)" (Dives et misericordia, n. 14). He also
showed us the many paths of mercy, which not only forgives sins but
reaches out to all human needs. Jesus bent over every kind of human
poverty, material and spiritual.
His message of mercy continues to reach us through his hands held
out to suffering man. This is how Sr Faustina saw him and proclaimed
him to people on all the continents when, hidden in her convent at
Lagiewniki in Kraków, she made her life a hymn to mercy:
Misericordias Domini in aeternum cantabo.
5. Sr. Faustina's canonization has a particular eloquence: by this
act I intend today to pass this message on to the new millennium. I
pass it on to all people, so that they will learn to know ever
better the true face of God and the true face of their brethren.
In fact, love of God and love of one's brothers and sisters are
inseparable, as the First Letter of John has reminded us: "By this
we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey
his commandments" (5: 2). Here the Apostle reminds us of the truth
of love, showing us its measure and criterion in the observance of
the commandments.
It is not easy to love with a deep love, which lies in the authentic
gift of self. This love can only be learned by penetrating the
mystery of God's love. Looking at him, being one with his fatherly
heart, we are able to look with new eyes at our brothers and
sisters, with an attitude of unselfishness and solidarity, of
generosity and forgiveness. All this is mercy!
To the extent that humanity penetrates the mystery of this merciful
gaze, it will seem possible to fulfil the ideal we heard in today's
first reading: "The community of believers were of one heart and one
mind. None of them ever claimed anything as his own; rather
everything was held in common" (Acts 4: 32). Here mercy gave form to
human relations and community life; it constituted the basis for the
sharing of goods. This led to the spiritual and corporal "works of
mercy". Here mercy became a concrete way of being "neighbor" to
one's neediest brothers and sisters.
6. Sr. Faustina Kowalska wrote in her Diary: "I feel tremendous pain
when I see the sufferings of my neighbors. All my neighbors'
sufferings reverberate in my own heart; I carry their anguish in my
heart in such a way that it even physically destroys me. I would
like all their sorrows to fall upon me, in order to relieve my
neighbor" (Diary, p. 365). This is the degree of compassion to which
love leads, when it takes the love of God as its measure!
It is this love which must inspire humanity today, if it is to face
the crisis of the meaning of life, the challenges of the most
diverse needs and, especially, the duty to defend the dignity of
every human person. Thus the message of divine mercy is also
implicitly a message about the value of every human being. Each
person is precious in God's eyes; Christ gave his life for each one;
to everyone the Father gives his Spirit and offers intimacy.
7. This consoling message is addressed above all to those who,
afflicted by a particularly harsh trial or crushed by the weight of
the sins they committed, have lost all confidence in life and are
tempted to give in to despair. To them the gentle face of Christ is
offered; those rays from his heart touch them and shine upon them,
warm them, show them the way and fill them with hope. How many souls
have been consoled by the prayer "Jesus, I trust in you", which
Providence intimated through Sr. Faustina! This simple act of
abandonment to Jesus dispels the thickest clouds and lets a ray of
light penetrate every life. Jezu, ufam tobie. (Jesus, I trust in
You)
8. Misericordias Domini in aeternum cantabo (Ps 88 [89]: 2). Let us
too, the pilgrim Church, join our voice to the voice of Mary most
holy, "Mother of Mercy", to the voice of this new saint who sings of
mercy with all God's friends in the heavenly Jerusalem.
And you, Faustina, a gift of God to our time, a gift from the land
of Poland to the whole Church, obtain for us an awareness of the
depth of divine mercy; help us to have a living experience of it and
to bear witness to it among our brothers and sisters. May your
message of light and hope spread throughout the world, spurring
sinners to conversion, calming rivalries and hatred and opening
individuals and nations to the practice of brotherhood. Today,
fixing our gaze with you on the face of the risen Christ, let us
make our own your prayer of trusting abandonment and say with firm
hope: Christ Jesus, I trust in you! Jezu, ufam tobie!
Source:
The Vatican |
