Third of ten children, she attended only three years of
school. As a teenager, she worked as a domestic servant
for other families. After being rejected by several religious
orders, she became a nun the Congregation of the Sisters
of Our Lady of Mercy in Warsaw, Poland on 1 August 1925;
the order is devoted to care and education of troubled
young women. She changed her name to Sister Maria
Faustina of the Most Blessed Sacrament. During her 13
years in various houses, she was a cook, gardener, and
porter.
She had a special devotion to Mary Immaculate, to the
Sacrament, and to Reconciliation, which led to a deep
mystical interior life. She began to have visions, receive
revelations, and experience hidden stigmata. She began
recording these mystical experiences in a diary; being
nearly illiterate, it was written phonetically, without
quotation marks or punctuation, and runs to nearly 700
pages. A bad translation reached Rome in 1958, and was
labeled heretical. However, when Karol Wojtyla (Pope John
Paul II) became Archbishop of Krakow, he was besieged
by requests for reconsideration. He ordered a better
translation made, and Vatican authorities realized that
instead of heresy, the work proclaimed God's love. It was
published as Divine Mercy in my Soul.
In the 1930’s, Sister Faustina received a message of
mercy from Jesus that she was told to spread throughout
the world, a message of God's mercy to each person
individually, and for humanity as a whole. Jesus asked that
a picture be painted of him with the inscription: "Jesus, I
Trust in You." She was asked to be a model of mercy to
others, to live her entire life, in imitation of Christ's, as a
sacrifice. She commissioned this painting in 1935, showing
a red and a white light shining from Christ's Sacred Heart.
Apostles of Divine Mercy is a movement of priests,
religious, and lay people inspired by Faustina's
experiences; they spread knowledge of the mystery of
Divine Mercy, and invoke God's mercy on sinners.
Approved in 1996 by the Archdiocese of Krakow, it has
spread to 29 countries.
Born 25 August 1905 at Glogowiec, Poland as Elena
(Helena) Kowalska
Died 5 October 1938 at Krakow, Poland of tuberculosis