Day 31 -- Saint Faustina Kowalska

"Do what You will with me, O Jesus; I will adore You in everything.
May Your will be done in me, O my Lord and my God, and I will praise Your infinite mercy."

I believe I first began to like the Divine Mercy Chaplet (video) on a Cursillo weekend when it was Divine Mercy Sunday and we sang it together. I particularly like the sung version.

The Divine Mercy Chaplet came out of a message that Saint Faustina Kowalska received from Jesus in the 1930s to spread his message of mercy throughout the world. Jesus asked that a picture of him be painted with the inscription "Jesus, I Trust in You." She commissioned this painting in 1935 which shows a red and white light shinning from Christ's Sacred Heart.

Apostles of Divine Mercy is a movement of priests, religious and lay people who were inspired by Saint Faustina's experiences to spread Jesus' message of the mystery of Divine Mercy. It was approved in 1996 by the Archdiocese of Krakow and is now in 29 countries.

Saint Faustina was born on August 25, 1905 in Glogowiec, Poland as Elena Kowalska. I had no idea she was so young...she died on October 5, 1938 of tuberculosis in Krakow. She was canonized by Pope John II on April 30, 2000.

She was rejected by several religious orders and finally became a nun in the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy on August 1, 1925. She changed her name to Sister Maria Faustina of the Most Blessed Sacrament. The Order cares for and educates troubled young women. She had a deep mystical interior life and began to have visions, receive revelations, and experienced the hidden stigmata. She wrote down her mystical experience in a diary and it runs about 700 pages. It was written phonetically, without quotation marks or punctuation, and the first translation it was noted as heresy, but then another translation was order by Pope John II when he became Archbishop of Krakow and the work was proclaimed as God's love. It was published as Divine Mercy in My Soul.

A few years ago my Cursillo group and I went to the Divine Mercy Shrine in MA. It was a wonderful day to spend together in prayer. And this year, Pope Benedict XVI granted a plenary indulgence for pilgrimages who visit the Shrine this year.

"My sanctity and perfection consist in the close union of my will with the will of God. God never violates our free will. It is up to us whether we want to receive God's grace or not. It is up to us whether we will cooperate with it or waste it." (Diary, 1107)