Many people now know St. Faustina Kowalska for her visions that established the devotion to Divine Mercy, but it wasn’t until after she died that these visions became known to anyone besides her spiritual director.

Faustina was born Helena Kowalska in Lodz, Poland, in 1905. The Kowalskas were a large peasant family who depended upon their children to help keep food on the table. From a young age, Helena felt a calling to enter religious life, but in order to continue providing for her family, Helena worked as a housekeeper.

When she was nineteen, while attending a dance in a park, Helena saw a vision of Jesus suffering. She immediately went to a nearby church to pray and received direction from Jesus to leave immediately for Warsaw to enter a convent. That very night, Helena packed a small bag and left for Warsaw without her parents’ knowledge or consent.

In Warsaw, Helena visited several convents but was turned away, due to her poverty and lack of education. After several weeks, one convent finally accepted her on the condition that she pay for her habit. Helena did not know anything about this particular community but felt certain that she had been led there.

Helena worked as a maid for a year to earn enough money to pay for her habit, and, in 1926 she joined the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, taking the name Sister Maria Faustina of the Blessed Sacrament. She served as cook, porter, and gardener in convents in Poland and Lithuania.

In 1930, while Faustina was praying in her room, Jesus appeared to her wearing a white robe with red and white rays emanating from his heart. He told her to have his image painted with these words inscribed below: “Jesus, I trust in you,” in Polish: “Jezu, ufam Tobie.” Jesus expressed his desire for a feast of Mercy to be established and for increased devotion to his abundant Divine Mercy.

Faustina began taking spiritual direction from the convent’s confessor, Fr. Michał Sopoćko, a professor of theology at Vilnius University. When Faustina told Fr. Michał of her visions, he recommended she be examined by a psychologist. After a number of tests, Faustina was declared to be of sound mind. Fr. Michał told Faustina to begin keeping a record of the visions and helped her find an artist to paint the image Jesus had requested.

In a later vision, Faustina recorded a series of prayers—the Chaplet of Divine Mercy—to be used in the devotion to the Divine Mercy. She wrote that the prayers served three purposes: to obtain mercy, to trust in Jesus’ mercy, and to show mercy to others.

Devotion to Divine Mercy spread quickly in popularity throughout the 1930s. In 1936, Faustina became critically ill with tuberculosis. As the disease slowly conquered her body, Faustina suffered intensely for several years. Her visions persisted, until she finally died on October 5, 1938, at the age of thirty-three.

After her death, the Vatican initiated an official inquiry into Faustina’s visions and diary, led by the Polish theologian Ignacy Rozycki. Faustina’s visions were approved as authentic and her diary was published first in Polish in 1981, lauded as “a document of Catholic mysticism of exceptional worth, not only for the Church in Poland, but also for the Universal Church.” Devotion to the Divine Mercy was a source of strength for the Polish people who suffered greatly in World War II. In 1958, Pope Pius XII blessed the image of Jesus that Faustina had commissioned to be painted. In 1965, Archbishop Karol Wojtyla of Krakow initiated the review process of Faustina’s life and visions for canonization. When Archbishop Wojtyla was elected Pope John Paul II in 1978, he sped up the canonization process significantly: Faustina was beatified in 1993, and canonized in 2000.

As part of the canonization of Faustina, Pope John Paul II also declared the second Sunday of Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday. In Faustina’s visions, Christ himself had expressed a desire for that feast to be celebrated:

“On that day, the very depths of My tender mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the fount of My mercy. The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion shall obtain the complete forgiveness of sins and punishment. On that day all the divine floodgates through which grace flow are opened. Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its sins be as scarlet.”

(Diary, 699)

To learn even more about Saint Faustina Kowalska, watch this video lecture from the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame.

St. Faustina Kowalska, who shared with the world the deep fountain of Divine Mercy—pray for us!

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Image Credit: (1) Our featured image of St. Faustina is in the public domain. Last accessed September 27, 2024 on Wikimedia Commons. (2) The Divine Mercy image used here is also in the public domain. Last accessed September 27, 2024 on Wikimedia Commons.