CrucisSt. Faustina Kowalska
St. Faustina Kowalska was born Helena Kowalska on 25 August 1905 in the village of Głogowiec, Poland, the third of ten children in a poor farming family, and died on 5 October 1938 in Kraków, aged thirty-three. With little formal schooling, she entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, serving humbly as a cook, gardener, and porter. From within that hidden life she received a series of profound mystical experiences of Jesus.
At Christ's request she recorded these revelations in her Diary, published as Divine Mercy in My Soul, which became the wellspring of the modern devotion to the Divine Mercy — including the image of Christ inscribed 'Jesus, I trust in You,' the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, and the feast of Divine Mercy Sunday, later established for the whole Church. Known as the Apostle of Divine Mercy, she was canonized in 2000 by Pope St. John Paul II, in the first canonization of the new millennium.
Selected quotes
“Jesus, I trust in You — these four words contain the whole of the spiritual life; say them with your whole heart and everything else will follow.”
“Distrust of God's mercy is the greatest obstacle to holiness — it prevents the soul from receiving what God most desires to give.”
“I do not ask you to feel confident — I ask you to act confident, to come to Me as though you already knew I would never turn you away.”