Saint of the Day: St. Faustina Kowalska

Religious (1905-1938)

Her life

+ Helena Kowalska was born in Głogowiec, Poland, to a poor, working-class family. She felt an attraction to the religious life at a young age, but her parents refused to give their blessing and she had to go to work at the age of 16 to help support her family. 

+ In 1924, a mystical experience inspired her to travel to Warsaw where, after being refused by a number of communities because of her evident poverty, she was accepted by the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy and received the religious name “Maria Faustina of the Blessed Sacrament.”

+ In 1930, she was sent to her community’s house in Płock where, on February 22, 1931, she had a vision of Jesus, dressed in white, with red and pale rays emanating from his heart. This is the origin of the Divine Mercy image and devotion, which Sister Maria Faustina dedicated the remainder of her life to promoting. She was later sent to Wilno (now Vilnius, Lithuania) where she began to record her experiences of grace in her diary which was later published as Divine Mercy in My Soul.

+ In 1936, Maria Faustina returned to Poland and a short time later began to show signs of the illness—possibly tuberculosis—that would claim her life. Always faithful to promoting the devotion to Divine Mercy, she died in Krakow on October 5, 1938. She was canonized in 2000.

For prayer and reflection

“How many expressions there are, therefore, of God’s mercy! This mercy comes to us as closeness and tenderness, and because of this, comes also as compassion and solidarity, as consolation and forgiveness. The more we receive, the more we are called to share it with others; it cannot be kept hidden or kept only for ourselves.”—Pope Francis

Spiritual bonus
On this day, the Church in the United States celebrates the memory of Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos. A Redemptorist priest and missionary who traveled throughout the US as part of a team of parish mission preachers, he died in New Orleans in 1866 as a result of caring for members of his parish who were suffering from a yellow fever epidemic. Blessed Francis Seelos was beatified in 2000. 

Prayer

O God, who in a wondrous manner
revealed the inexhaustible riches of your mercy to Saint Maria Faustina,
grant, we beseech you,
that by looking with trust upon the pierced side of your Son
we may be strengthened to show mercy one to another
and, at length, sing forever of your mercy in heaven.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, forever and ever. Amen. 

(from The Roman Missal)
Saint profiles prepared by Fr. Silas Henderson, S.D.S