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 Gùogowiec 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 Úwinice 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 programs.htmlent 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, Ùódê 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, Pùock 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:
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 Kraków 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 Kraków 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-Ùagiewniki.
Source: Homily of the Holy Father, John Paul II, Vatican web site
"The two rays denote Blood and Water. The pale ray stands for the Water which makes souls righteous. The red ray stands for the Blood which is the life of souls. These two rays issued forth from the very depths of My tender mercy when My agonized Heart was opened by a lance on the Cross. These rays shield souls from the wrath of My Father. Happy is the one who will dwell in their shelter, for the just hand of God shall not lay hold of him. I desire that the first Sunday after Easter be the Feast of Mercy."
How the Divine Mercy Saved My Soul - And That of My Husband and Son
By a parishioner
It was more than 10 years ago when my mother asked if I had a picture of Jesus in my home. "Mom, I don't need a picture of Jesus," I replied in a cocky voice. "I have a picture of my guru and that's the same." "No, that's not the same. You must have a picture of Jesus," my mother insisted. "And, it cannot be just any picture but an image of Jesus with two rays."
That was my first lesson on the Divine Mercy image even though I never saw it and had no idea what my mother was talking about. I discarded her message but - Jesus had planted the seed.
My husband and I were away from the Catholic Church for 30 years. We left the Church - as most young ones - at the very beginning of our university years. We did not need God. We knew everything! We started living selfish lives, ungrateful to God for what we had. God was the last Person we thought of, even when we needed help, as when our marriage was strained. We were so far away from living in God's Truth that we never even passed the knowledge about the existence of God and Jesus Christ who walked on this earth to our son.
On my next trip to visit my mom I couldn't resist asking her about the picture she spoke about. My mother then showed me the Divine Mercy image. "Why would anybody need it," I thought. However - although I did not realize it - Jesus was already opening my heart. Before I returned home, I asked my mother where we could get an image for our home.
Jesus' image with its famous "Jesus, I trust in You" invocation ended up in our bedroom. Ignorant of Jesus' powerful promises regarding the image I was surprised when a chain of events in my life lead me back to Church only two years later.
By God's merciful grace my husband followed my footsteps. Shortly after that our marriage was blessed by Church. A meaningful and emotional first-since-high-school confession, followed by Holy Communion, became a starting point of a powerful transformation of our hearts and lives! How God had worked in our lives during these eight years. We began experiencing peace in our hearts. A peace which the world is not able to give. It is beyond our human power to express how one feels when the burdens of life are lifted from your shoulders. The crosses stay the same or they may even increase, but one faces them with a different strength. And, how does one describe the heart burning with a new-born love for God? There would not be enough room in this bulletin to speak of the incredible graces God has showered on us since then.
This testimonial would not be complete without mentioning my son's story. As we were entering Church he was on the verge of self-destruction. Alcohol, drugs, broken family, homelessness and finally jail. In the midst of these sorrowful-for-the-parents events, our son accepted an image of Divine Mercy. He held on to it even when he was homeless and even though he did not fully understand whom It portrayed. And he too experienced the Mercy of Our Lord. Now, his life is completely restored. He joined the Catholic Church a few years ago, his children have been baptized and two of the older ones already received the Sacrament of the 1st Communion. Jesus is their Master.
With this testimonial I would like to bring a new hope into your hearts. If you do not have the Divine Mercy image in your homes, please accept one. Give It as gifts to others. Your lives will be changed in unimaginable ways. Jesus promised grace and mercy. And, I testify - as a living example - that Jesus keeps His promises.
Source: blessedsacramentchurch.org