St. Faustina Kowalska, the Nun

Sacrum

Characters from Małopolska

The image of Saint Faustina Kowalska is inseparable from Cracow. It was here where on 1 May 1933 she made her perpetual vows. Cracow was also the place where she spent the last two years of his life. She died at the age of just 33 years, on 5 October 1938. She was buried in the convent cemetery in Cracow-Łagiewniki, and later her remains were transferred to the Shrine of Divine Mercy in Łagiewniki, where they were placed in the side altar of the convent chapel. The railing in front of that altar has a built-in marble prie-dieu, where a fragment of the holy relics is entombed, so that pilgrims who come here from all over the world, can venerate her.

She was Helena Kowalska before the adoption of the monastic name. All her life she was modest and smiling and trusting God. At the monastery, she worked in the kitchen, the garden and the entrance gate. But this simple and uneducated woman was entrusted with a unique mission. The world may know St. Faustina as the apostle of God’s Mercy - is was through her that Jesus gave to the Church and the world the message she wrote in her "Diary" – a bestseller translated into more than 30 languages. People were called to trust in the Lord and show mercy toward one's neighbors, and to proclaim and implore God's Mercy for the world, through the practice of new forms of worship (the miraculous image of Merciful Jesus, "In Jesus We Trust," Feast of Mercy on the first Sunday after Easter, chaplet of Divine Mercy and the Hour of Mercy).
Sister Faustina’s mission was continued by Pope John Paul II. On 30 April 2000 he declared her a saint. On that occasion, he said, "Today I experience a great joy, revealing to the whole Church the life and witness of Sister Faustina Kowalska, as a gift of God for our times. (...) Through this canonisation, I would like today to convey the Message of Mercy to the new millennium. I pass it on to all people, to learn to know ever better the true face of God and man."