Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska
Helena Kowalska was born in Glogowiec, Poland, in 1905. She came from a poor and religious family of peasants; she was the 3rd of 10 children. As a very young child, Helena became known for her obvious love of prayer, work, obedience, and compassion for the poor. By the age of 7, Helena became aware of her calling to the religious life. Delayed because her parents would not give their permission for Helena to enter a convent, it took a vision of the Suffering Christ on 1 August 1925 to give her the determination to proceed with that calling. A few weeks before her 20th birthday, she was received as a postulant by the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in Warsaw, Poland, and took the name Sister Mary Faustina. During her time at the convent, Sister Mary Faustina was blessed with many graces, including visions, revelations, wounds of the stigmata (hidden from all but her), sharing in the Passion of the Lord, bilocation, the ability to read of human souls, prophecy, and mystical engagement and marriage.
Sister Mary Faustina was chosen by Our Lord as the Apostle and "Secretary" of His Mercy. He said to her "In the Old Covenant, 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) Sister Mary Faustina's mission had 3 tasks:
- Spreading the truth revealed in the Holy Scripture about God's merciful love for every human
- Spreading God's Infinite Mercy for the whole world and particularly for sinners by practicing new forms of devotion to the Divine Mercy. These included the veneration of the image of the Divine Mercy, the Feast of the Divine Mercy which is celebrated on the 2nd Sunday of Easter, The Chaplet to the Divine Mercy, and prayer at the Hour of Mercy of 3:00pm.
- Founding the apostolic movement of the Divine Mercy.
At the request of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Sister Mary Faustina's recorded the details of her mission in a Diary. Being practically illiterate, she managed to write almost 700 pages in her diary phonetically.
Sister Mary Faustina died on 5 October 1938 of tuberculosis at a convent in Krakow, Poland. She was buried in the convent chapel beneath the image of the Divine Mercy. She was beatified on April 18, 1993. On 30 April 2000, Pope John Paul II canonized Maria Faustina Kowalska, Virgin, of the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy. The day of both her beatification and canonization were the Second Sunday of Easter, the Feast of the Divine Mercy, Mercy Sunday.
Click to display The Chaplet to the Divine Mercy
How to pray The Chaplet to the Divine Mercy
- Begin with the Sign of the Cross, 1 Our Father, 1 Hail Mary and The Apostles Creed.
- Then on the Our Father Beads say the following:
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. - On the 10 Hail Mary Beads say the following:
For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.
(Repeat step 2 and 3 for all five decades). - Conclude with (three times):
Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us and on the whole world.
In 1933, God gave Sister Faustina a striking vision of His Mercy, Sister tells us:
"I saw a great light, with God the Father in the midst of it. Between this light and the earth I saw Jesus nailed to the Cross and in such a way that God, wanting to look upon the earth, had to look through Our Lord's wounds and I understood that God blessed the earth for the sake of Jesus."
Of another vision on Sept. 13, 1935, she writes:
"I saw an Angel, the executor of God's wrath... about to strike the earth...I began to beg God earnestly for the world with words which I heard interiorly. As I prayed in this way, I saw the Angel's helplessness, and he could not carry out the just punishment...."
The following day an inner voice taught her to say this prayer on ordinary rosary beads:
"First say one 'Our Father', 'Hail Mary', and 'I believe'. Then on the large beads say the following words:
'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.'
On the smaller beads you are to say the following words:
'For the sake of His sorrowful Passion have mercy on us and on the whole world.'
In conclusion you are to say these words three times:
'Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us and on the whole world'.
Jesus said later to Sister Faustina:
"Say unceasingly this chaplet that I have taught you. Anyone who says it will receive great Mercy at the hour of death. Priests will recommend it to sinners as the last hope. Even the most hardened sinner, if he recites this Chaplet even once, will receive grace from My Infinite Mercy. I want the whole world to know My Infinite Mercy. I want to give unimaginable graces to those who trust in My Mercy...."
"....When they say this Chaplet in the presence of the dying, I will stand between My Father and the dying person not as the just judge but as the Merciful Savior".