Mystic (1905–1938)
St. Mary Faustina, who was born to a large family in rural Poland, entered a convent of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in Warsaw. Although outwardly there was little to distinguish her from her sisters, privately she enjoyed an extraordinary series of conversations with Jesus, recorded in a diary known only to her confessor. In one vision, she saw Jesus pointing to two bright rays that emanated from his heart—one white and one red. He told her: “These beams signify water and blood. The water that purifies souls; the blood that is the life of the soul. They spring from My heart which was opened on the Cross.”
Devotion to God’s mercy became the central theme of her spirituality; her central mission, to remind Christians of this mercy. Her superiors, however, doubted her visions, believing she was delusional. Only after her death from tuberculosis on October 5, 1938, did they discover her diary and submit it for examination in Rome. There it was viewed with suspicion and eventually placed on the Index of Forbidden Books. Restoration of her reputation began when Karol Wojtyla became archbishop of Krakow. He initiated an investigation of her holiness and later, as Pope John Paul II, presided over her canonization. At the same time, he proclaimed that the Second Sunday of Easter would be celebrated as “Divine Mercy Sunday.”
“Great love can change small things into great ones, and it is only love which lends value to our actions. And the purer our love becomes, the less there will be within us for the flames of suffering to feed upon, and the suffering will cease to be a suffering for us; it will become a delight!”
—St. Mary Faustina Kowalska
