The aims of
the mission of Saint Faustina
Jesus' words to
Saint Faustina:
In the Old Covenant I sent prophets
wielding thunderbolds 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.
(1588)
It's a sign for the end times; after it
will come the day of justice. While there is still time, let them have recourse to the
fount of My mercy; let them profit from the Blood and Water which gushed forth for them.
(848) Before
I come as a just Judge, I first open wide the doors of My mercy. He who refuses to pass
through the doors of My mercy must pass through the doors of My justice...
(1146)
The
task of "proclaiming and introducing into life" the mystery
of God's mercy, and imploring that mercy for the world, which the Holy
Father, Pope John Paul
II places before entire Church, was entrusted to Saint Faustina as
her life's witness and mission.
Saint Faustina
was born in 1905 in the village of Glogowiec near Lodz (Poland) as the third
of ten children in the family of Marianna and Stanislaw Kowalski. From her
childhood she was distinguished by a love for prayer, diligence at work,
obedience and sensitivity for the poor. She attended not quite three years of
elementary schooling, and later, as a teenager, left her family home to work
as a domestic servant.
At
the age of twenty she entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Our
Lady of Mercy in
which, as Sister Maria Faustina, she spent thirteen years of her life
performing the duties of cook, gardener, and doorkeeper. Her life, tough
seemingly very ordinary, monotonous and drab, concealed in itself an
exceptionally profound union with God. From her childhood she desired to
become a great saint, and she consistently strove toward that goal, working
together with Jesus for the salvation of lost souls, even to the extent of
offering her life as a sacrifice for sinners. Therefore, her life as a
religious was marked with the stigma of suffering, but also with extraordinary
mystical graces.
The
mission of Saint Faustina consists in:
- reminding the world of the
truth of our faith revealed in Holy Scripture about the merciful love of
God towards every human being, even the greatest sinner;
- conveying new forms of
devotion to Divine Mercy;
- initiating a great movement
of devotes and apostles of Divine Mercy who would lead people toward the
renoval of Christian life in the spirit of this devotion; in other words,
in the evangelical spirit of a childlike confidence in God and an active
love of neighbor.
Worn out and
weakened by tuberculosis and the sufferings she bore in sacrifice for sinners,
Saint Faustina died in the odor of sanctity in Cracow on October 5, 1938 at
the age of 33.
On the first
Sunday after Easter, April 18, 1993, in St. Peter's Square in Rome, Pope John
Paul II declared her one of the community of the blessed. On the following day
during his general audience he said:
"God
has spoken to us through the spiritual wealth of Blessed Sister Faustina
Kowalska.
She left to the world the great message of Divine Mercy and an incentive to
complete self-surrender to the Creator. God endowed her with a singular grace
that enabled her to experience His mercy through mystical encounter and by
a special gift of contemplative prayer.
Blessed
Sister Faustina, thank you for reminding the world of that great mystery
of Divine
Mercy; that 'startling mystery', that inexpressive mystery of the Father,
which today every individual and the whole world need so very much."
Sister
Faustina has been canonized in Rome on the first
Sunday after Easter, April 30, 2000 by the Holy Father John Paul II.
Source:
http://faustina.ch/index_fr.htm
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