Did you know that October 5 is the feast of one of the most remarkable saints of our time? St. Maria Faustina Kowalska.
There’s something about her story that I’ve always found extraordinary. God entrusted one of the great spiritual messages of the modern age not to a theologian, not to a bishop, or someone famous, but to a poor, relatively unknown Polish nun, who worked as a cook, gardener, and porter.
She was born Helena Kowalska in Poland in 1905, the third of ten children. She entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, and behind the walls of the convent something extraordinary began happening; Faustina experienced visions and revelations of Jesus, who entrusted to her a simple message for a wounded world: God is rich in mercy. Trust Him. Come back to Him. No sin is greater than His mercy.
It was through Faustina that we received the image of Divine Mercy, the risen Christ with rays of red and pale light flowing from His Heart and those beautiful words beneath Him: “Jesus, I trust in You.” She recorded her encounters with Christ in what became The Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul.
And look at what happened.
This obscure Polish nun died of tuberculosis on October 5th, 1938, at thirty-three years of age. Yet the message entrusted to her escaped the walls of that convent, and spread around the world. Divine Mercy has become an extraordinary worldwide grassroots movement in the Church. Today you’ll find it in every habitable continent. Millions pray the Chaplet. Millions celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday.
And on April 30, 2000, Pope St. John Paul II canonized Faustina, the first saint canonized in the new millennium. On that same day, the pontiff established Divine Mercy Sunday for the universal Church. He called Faustina “a gift of God to our time.”
But here’s what I want you to remember today. Faustina believed her work would not end when she died.
She wrote: “I feel certain that my mission will not come to an end upon my death but will begin.” And then she made this astonishing promise, “O doubting souls, I will draw aside for you the veils of heaven to convince you of God’s goodness.” (Diary of St. Faustina, 281)
Later, as death approached, she wrote: “Poor earth, I will not forget you.” She said that even though she would be immersed in God “as in an ocean of happiness,” she would continue returning to encourage souls to trust in God’s mercy, adding that union with God would give her the possibility of “boundless action.” (Diary of St. Faustina, 1582).
Think about that.
On her feast day, October 5, why not take Faustina at her word?
Bring her the person you’re worried about. Bring her the son or daughter who has walked away from God. Bring her your marriage, your illness, your fear, your past, the sin you still struggle to believe God could forgive. Bring her that prayer you’ve prayed for years without seeing an answer.
Ask St. Faustina to carry it before the throne of Jesus.
And then do what she spent her life teaching you to do: trust.
May Our Merciful Lord Bless you and may St. Faustina, Apostle of Divine Mercy, pray for us all.
“Jesus, I trust in You.”
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