Saint Maria Faustina and Divine Mercy

Today we celebrate the feast day of Saint Maria Faustina. Born in Poland, which was part of Germany before World War I, she was the third of ten children. She worked as a housekeeper before joining the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in 1925. She worked as a cook, gardener and porter in three of their houses. In addition to carrying out her work faithfully, she generously served the needs of the sisters and the local people.

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 of God's mercy, a model of how to be merciful to others, and an instrument for God's plan of mercy for the world. Her entire life, in imitation of Christ's, was to be a sacrifice, a life lived for others. At the Lord's request, she willingly offered her personal sufferings in union with Him to atone for the sins of others; in her daily life she was to become a doer of mercy, bringing joy and peace to others, and by writing about God's mercy, she was to encourage others to trust in Him and thus prepare the world for His coming again. Her special devotion to Mary Immaculate and to the sacraments of Eucharist and Reconciliation gave her the strength to bear all her sufferings as an offering to God on behalf of the Church and those in special need, especially great sinners and the dying.

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. After her death from tuberculosis in 1938, even her closest associates were amazed as they began to discover what great sufferings and deep mystical experiences had been given to this Sister of theirs, who had always been so cheerful and humble. She had taken deeply into her heart, God's gospel command to "be merciful even as your heavenly Father is merciful" as well as her confessor's directive that she should act in such a way that everyone who came in contact with her would go away joyful. The message of mercy that Sister Faustina received is now being spread throughout the world; her diary, Divine Mercy in my Soul, has become the handbook for devotion to the Divine Mercy.

She had a deep interior life and had a great devotion to the Blessed Mother. She received revelations from the Lord Jesus, messages that she recorded in her diary at the request of Christ and of her confessors. Jesus told her to have the image of Divine Mercy painted. The two rays emanating from Christ's heart, represent the blood and water poured out after Jesus' death.

Because Sister Maria Faustina knew that the revelations she had already received did not constitute holiness itself, she wrote in her diary: “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).



Sister Maria Faustina died of tuberculosis in Krakow, Poland, on October 5, 1938. Pope John Paul II beatified her in 1993 and canonized her seven years later. Saint Faustina's name is forever linked to the feast of the Divine Mercy, celebrated on the Second Sunday of Easter, the Divine Mercy chaplet and the Divine Mercy prayer recited each day by so many people at 3 o'clock, Mercy Hour.

Jesus, we trust in You. Saint Maria Faustina, pray for us.