ST. MARIA FAUSTINA KOWALSKA
FEAST DAY – 5th OCTOBER
Maria Faustina Kowalska, born on 25th August 1905, lived till 5th August 1938. She was also known as St Maria Faustina Kowalska of the Blessed Sacrament and was a Polish Roman Catholic nun. Throughout her life, Kowalska reported having visions of Jesus and conversations with him, which she noted in her diary, later published as the Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska Divine Mercy in my Soul. As a sign of her union with God, she also received the invisible stigmata — one among many graces from God.
Her apparitions of Jesus Christ, inspired the Roman Catholic Devotion to the Divine Mercy and earned her the title of Secretary of Divine Mercy or Apostle of Divine Mercy, Prophet of Our Times, Great Mystic, Mistress of Spiritual Life – these are the epithets usually appended to the name of Sister Faustina Kowalska, of the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy. Sister Faustina is one of the Church’s most popular and widely known saints and the greatest mystics in the history of the Church.
Sister Faustina died in Krakow on October 5, 1938, at the age of just thirty–three. Out of her charism and mystical experience grew the Apostolic Movement of the Divine Mercy which continues her mission, proclaiming the message of Mercy to the world through the testimony of life, deed, words and prayer. On April 18, 1993, after two miracles were investigated and confirmed, the Holy Father John Paul II raised her to the numbers of the Blessed and canonized St. Maria Faustina Kowalska in 2000, the first saint of the 21st century and New Millenium. He called the day she became a saint “the happiest day of my life”.
PRAYER
(To obtain grace through
the intercession of Saint Faustina)
O Jesus, You inspired Saint Faustina with profound veneration for Your boundless Mercy. Grant me through her intercession, if it be Your holy will, the grace …for which I fervently pray.
My sins render me unworthy of Your Mercy, but be mindful of Saint Faustina’s spirit of sacrifice and self-denial, and reward her virtue by granting the petition which, with childlike confidence, I present to You through her intercession.
Our Father…, Hail Mary…, Glory be…
Saint Faustina, pray for us.
Prayer to Saint Faustina by the Holy Father John Paul II
And you, Faustina, a gift of God to our time, a gift from the land of Poland to the whole Church, obtain for us an awareness of the depth of Divine Mercy; help us to have a living experience of it and to bear witness to it among our brothers and sisters. May your message of light and hope spread throughout the world, spurring sinners to conversion, calming rivalries and hatred, and opening individuals and nations to the practice of brotherhood. Today, fixing our gaze with you on the Face of the Risen Christ, let us make our own your prayer of trusting abandonement and say with firm hope:”Jesus, I trust in You!”.
Rome, April 30, 2000