Saint Faustina Kowalska

Life and historical context

Helena Kowalska was born on 25 August 1905 in the village of Głogowiec in central Poland, the third of ten children in a poor peasant family. The Poland of her birth was partitioned among the Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Prussian empires; Głogowiec lay within the Russian-controlled portion, and the political restoration of an independent Polish state would not come until 1918. Helena attended fewer than three years of formal schooling and worked from the age of fourteen as a domestic servant in towns near her village to contribute to the family's support.¹

Her religious vocation manifested early. She experienced what she later described as the first call to consecrated life at the age of seven, during exposition of the Blessed Sacrament in her parish church, but her parents refused permission for her to enter religious life. After working as a domestic servant in Aleksandrów Łódzki, Łódź, and Warsaw, she presented herself to several Polish religious congregations, all of which initially turned her away because of her lack of education and dowry. In August 1925, at the age of twenty, she was finally accepted by the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in Warsaw, a community devoted to the rehabilitation of women in moral difficulty. She received the religious name Sister Maria Faustina of the Most Blessed Sacrament.²

Faustina spent thirteen years in religious life, serving in Sisters of Mercy houses at Warsaw, Płock, Vilnius, and Kraków. She worked in the kitchen, the garden, the gatehouse, and other ordinary domestic tasks of the convent. Her health was fragile from the beginning of her religious life, and she suffered from what was probably tuberculosis from at least 1936 onward. The interior life of those years was extraordinary by any standard: in 1934, on the instruction of her confessor Father Michał Sopoćko, she began to keep a spiritual diary, and in 1937 she received a private revelation from Jesus at her convent in Płock that became the foundation of the modern Catholic devotion to Divine Mercy.³

The Diary of Saint Faustina, composed between 1934 and 1938 in six manuscript notebooks totaling more than six hundred pages, is the principal record of her interior life. Faustina died of tuberculosis at the convent infirmary in Kraków-Łagiewniki on 5 October 1938 at the age of thirty-three. Her last words, recorded by her sisters, were a recitation of the litany of trust in Jesus.⁴

Theological and spiritual significance

The Divine Mercy devotion that took shape in Faustina's Diary centers on the mystery of God's mercy revealed in the Paschal mystery of Christ. The principal elements of the devotion are: the Image of Divine Mercy (depicting the risen Christ with red and white rays issuing from his pierced heart, with the inscription Jezu, ufam Tobie / "Jesus, I trust in you"); the Chaplet of Divine Mercy (a brief Rosary-based prayer recited on Rosary beads); the Divine Mercy Novena (prayed from Good Friday to the Saturday before Divine Mercy Sunday); the Hour of Mercy (prayer at three o'clock in the afternoon, the hour of Christ's death on the Cross); and Divine Mercy Sunday (the Sunday after Easter).⁵

The path of the Divine Mercy devotion to formal magisterial approval was protracted. Faustina's writings were placed on a notification of the Holy See in 1959, partly because of inaccurate translations and partly because of theological concerns raised by the political pressures on the Polish Church under Communist rule. The notification was lifted in 1978 after a careful review under Cardinal Karol Wojtyła, then Archbishop of Kraków. When Wojtyła was elected Pope John Paul II later that same year, the cause for Faustina's beatification advanced rapidly, and she was beatified on 18 April 1993.⁶

Pope John Paul II canonized Faustina on 30 April 2000 (Divine Mercy Sunday) and on the same day formally established Divine Mercy Sunday as a feast of the universal Roman Calendar. The institution of Divine Mercy Sunday on the Octave Day of Easter set Divine Mercy as a particular Sunday observance distinct from but theologically continuous with the celebration of the Resurrection. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in its treatment of the Paschal mystery, treats Divine Mercy as the proper Catholic name for the mystery of God's saving love revealed in Christ's death and resurrection.⁷

Pope Saint John Paul II's relationship to Faustina was particular. He died on the vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday in 2005, and his successor Benedict XVI noted in the homily of John Paul II's funeral Mass that the Polish Pope's death on the eve of Divine Mercy Sunday was itself "a coincidence not without significance." Benedict XVI continued and deepened Catholic teaching on Divine Mercy in his own pontificate, and Pope Francis declared an Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy from December 2015 to November 2016, with the Diary of Saint Faustina cited as a foundational reference text.

Devotion and liturgical observance

The feast of Saint Faustina Kowalska is celebrated on 5 October, the day of her death, in the universal Roman Calendar with the rank of optional memorial. Divine Mercy Sunday, the second Sunday of Easter, is observed in the universal Roman Calendar as a feast (and is celebrated in the United States and many other countries with greater solemnity). Catholics who fulfill specified conditions on Divine Mercy Sunday (sacramental confession in the days surrounding the feast, reception of Holy Communion on the feast itself, and prayers for the intentions of the Pope) may receive a plenary indulgence under the usual conditions.⁸

The principal pilgrimage destination associated with Faustina is the Sanctuary of Divine Mercy at Kraków-Łagiewniki in Poland, on the grounds of the convent where Faustina lived from 1936 to her death in 1938. The sanctuary houses Faustina's tomb and the original of the first painted Divine Mercy Image, executed in Vilnius in 1934 under Faustina's direction by the artist Eugeniusz Kazimirowski. The sanctuary draws several million pilgrims annually and is the largest single Catholic pilgrimage destination in Eastern Europe.

Saint Faustina's hometown of Głogowiec, the convents at Płock and Vilnius (now in Lithuania), and the cell where Faustina received the revelation of the Divine Mercy Image are all secondary pilgrimage sites. The Vilnius Divine Mercy Sanctuary contains the original Kazimirowski Image, while the Kraków sanctuary contains a copy.

The traditional iconography of Faustina shows her in the brown habit of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, holding a rosary and the Diary, often shown writing or in contemplation before the Divine Mercy Image. Her liturgical color on the feast is white.

Prayers and novenas associated with Saint Faustina

The principal devotion to Saint Faustina is the Divine Mercy Novena, prayed from Good Friday through the Saturday before Divine Mercy Sunday. Each day of the novena prays for a different group of souls (sinners, priests and religious, devout and faithful souls, those who do not believe in God, those separated from the Church, the meek and humble, those who especially venerate Divine Mercy, souls in Purgatory, and lukewarm souls). The full text of the novena is preserved in entries 1209 to 1229 of the Diary.

The Chaplet of Divine Mercy, prayed on ordinary Rosary beads, is a brief prayer cycle that takes about seven minutes to recite. It opens with the Our Father, Hail Mary, and the Apostles' Creed, then proceeds through five decades, each consisting of "Eternal Father, I offer you the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of your dearly beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world" (once) and "For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world" (ten times), and closes with "Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us and on the whole world" (three times).

Catholics commonly pair Faustina devotions with the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Apostles' Creed, and the Holy Rosary. The recitation of the Chaplet at the three o'clock Hour of Mercy is encouraged in the Diary, particularly on Fridays in commemoration of the hour of Christ's death.

For broader theological context, see Communion of Saints, Saint John Paul II (the pope who canonized Faustina and instituted Divine Mercy Sunday), and the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary, which meditate on the same Paschal mystery from which the Divine Mercy devotion flows.

Sources

Footnotes

1. Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul (composed 1934-1938 in Polish; English critical edition by the Marians of the Immaculate Conception, 1987). The biographical sections of the Diary, particularly entries 1 to 30, document Faustina's early life. The standard Polish critical edition is published by the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy. ↩

2. Diary, entries 7 to 16, on her early religious vocation and the difficulties of her acceptance into religious life. Catholic Encyclopedia entries on Saint Faustina were not yet written at the time of the 1907 edition; her canonization came nearly a century later. ↩

3. Diary, the principal source for her religious life, in six notebooks composed at the direction of her confessor Father Michał Sopoćko (himself beatified in 2008) and her spiritual director Father Józef Andrasz. ↩

4. Vita Beatae Faustinae Kowalska (the official biography prepared for the canonization process, 2000), preserved in the archives of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. The chronology of her death and final hours is documented by sister-witnesses in the canonization records. ↩

5. Diary, entries 47 to 50 on the original revelation of the Divine Mercy Image at Płock on 22 February 1931, and entries 1209 to 1229 on the Divine Mercy Novena. The Catechism of the Catholic Church does not specifically discuss the Faustina apparitions but treats Divine Mercy as a theological category in paragraphs 270, 1846, and following. ↩

6. Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Notification of 6 March 1959, placing Faustina's writings under restriction. Notification of 15 April 1978, lifting the earlier restriction following the review under Cardinal Wojtyła. Both available in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis of the relevant years. ↩

7. Pope John Paul II, Misericordia Dei (apostolic letter, 7 April 2002), and the homily for the canonization of Faustina on 30 April 2000, instituting Divine Mercy Sunday in the universal Roman Calendar. Available at vatican.va. ↩

8. General Roman Calendar, current edition, on the rank and date of the feast of Saint Faustina (5 October) and Divine Mercy Sunday (the Sunday after Easter, also called the Octave Day of Easter or the Second Sunday of Easter). Apostolic Penitentiary decree of 13 May 2002 on the indulgence attached to Divine Mercy Sunday. ↩