Saint Faustina
Saint Faustina
Saint
Faustina was born into a poor family near Lodz. In 1925, when she was
twenty, she entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy
in Warsaw, 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’. She spent her life in many convents, working as a
cook, gardener and porter. In the 1930's, Sister 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 re-emphasising
God's plan of mercy for the world. She was granted numerous gifts by God:
visions, reading in people minds, mystical experiences, and, above all, the gift
of deep prayer, which allowed her to learn deeply about the mystery of the
Divine Mercy and to show it to people. On 22 February 1931 she had the vision
of the Christ, who said:
"Paint the image according to the pattern you see, with the signature: Jesus,
I trust in You. I desire that this image be venerated, first in your chapel, and
throughout the world... I promise that the soul that shall venerate this image
will not perish. The rays represent the Blood and Water which gushed forth from
the depths of my Mercy when My agonizing heart was pierced on the cross. The
pale rays symbolize the water which cleanses and purifies the soul: the red rays
represent the blood, which gives new life to the soul. Mankind will not find
consolation until it turns with confidence to my mercy and love. Let them beg my
mercy of me at 3 o’clock, especially those who sin. This is the time of great
Mercy for the whole world. That time I will not turn my face away from those,
who will beg me in the name of my Passion."
Faustina’s 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. 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. Bound
mystically to God, she died from tuberculosis in 1938 in Cracow. Her
mission was to show the way of trust in God, spreading the truth about
the Divine Mercy given in the Bible and to inspire the apostolic movement of the
Divine Mercy. She was canonised in 2000.
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