Faustina Kowalska

Sister Faustina's work consists entirely in the dissemination of the message of Divine Mercy. According to her writings, on February 22, 1931, in Płock, Christ appeared to her dressed in white, with two rays emanating from his heart, and asked her to have this image painted with the inscription 'Jesus, I trust in You'. The painting was created in 1934 in Vilnius by the painter Eugeniusz Kazimirowski, under the direction of her confessor and spiritual director, Father Michał Sopoćko, who was himself beatified in 2008. At the latter's invitation, Faustina recorded her interior experiences in a diary, published under the title Diary: Divine Mercy in My Soul, which has become one of the most widely read mystical texts of the 20th century. Through her, four forms of devotion to Divine Mercy were transmitted: the veneration of the image, the Feast of Mercy, the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, and the Hour of Mercy, celebrated at three o'clock. A religious sister without theological training, she presented herself as the 'secretary' of Divine Mercy.

Faustine's holiness unfolds in the ordinary life of the convent, far from any notoriety. She lives out her menial tasks in obedience, silence, and abandonment, making humility and trust the axes of her spirituality. The heart of her message is the assurance that divine mercy is the greatest attribute of God and that it is offered to every sinner who abandons themselves to it; the prayer "Jesus, I trust in You" summarizes this fundamental attitude. In her Diary, she formulates her conviction that "my holiness and perfection consist in a close union of my will with that of God." Her fragile health and inner trials, lived in faithfulness, are accompanied by a deep life of prayer and a Eucharistic devotion expressed by her religious name. Her reputation for holiness, initially limited to those around her, spread after her death as devotion to the Divine Mercy grew, leading up to the opening of her cause.

Pope John Paul II, who had known the devotion to the Divine Mercy since his time in Poland, beatified Sister Faustina on April 18, 1993, in Rome, in Saint Peter's Square, on the Feast of Divine Mercy. He canonized her on April 30, 2000, the Second Sunday of Easter, during a ceremony presented as the first canonization of the Jubilee of the year 2000. The miracle accepted for the canonization was the unexplained healing of Father Ronald Pytel, a priest from Baltimore suffering from a severe aortic valve condition, which occurred in 1995; the Congregation for the Causes of Saints promulgated the decree recognizing its miraculous nature in December 1999. On the very day of the canonization, John Paul II instituted the "Feast of Divine Mercy" for the entire Church, set for the Second Sunday of Easter, thus fulfilling a request contained in the saint's writings. Her liturgical feast is celebrated on October 5, the anniversary of her death.

The legacy of Saint Faustina is inseparable from the global rise of the devotion to the Divine Mercy, whose image and chaplet are today spread across the five continents. Her relics rest at the Sanctuary of the Divine Mercy in Kraków-Łagiewniki, which has become a major place of pilgrimage that John Paul II consecrated in 2002, entrusting the world to the Divine Mercy there. Her Diary, translated into numerous languages, continues to nourish the spirituality of the faithful and religious communities. The message she transmitted deeply marked the pontificate of John Paul II, who dedicated the encyclical Dives in misericordia to it and made Divine Mercy Sunday a universal feast. Honored as the apostle and the "secretary" of the Divine Mercy, she remains one of the most radiant Polish spiritual figures of the 20th century.