Saint Talk: St. Faustina,Messenger of Mercy

Photo from the Oblates of Divine Mercy

Today the Church celebrates the feast of St. Faustina who was a young Polish nun who received the message of Divine Mercy in a series of visions from Christ.

Faustina was a young, uneducated nun who belonged to the Congregation of Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in Kracow, Poland. Because of her simple upbringing, Faustina's duties included humble tasks like gardening and kitchen work. Despite the humble exterior, Faustina enjoyed a remarkable interior life. She received a series of visions from Christ instructing her on his Divine Mercy. St. Faustina collected notes of all the visions and messages she received from Jesus. These eventually were compiled into her Diary of Divine Mercy.

In addition to the visions of Christ, she also demonstrated extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit, including bilocation, the hidden stigmata and the reading of hearts. Faustina died from tuberculosis in 1938. She was 33 years old.

After Faustina's death, the Archbishop of Kracow, Karol Wojtyla initiated talks with Rome for her cause for sainthood to be opened. While at the Second Vatican Council, "he approached Cardinal Ottaviani about the desire of the faithful in Poland to have Saint Faustina raised to the honours of the altar" (Divine Mercy Apostolate). Little did he know that years later as Pope John Paul II he would oversee her canonization on April 30, 2000, on Divine Mercy Sunday.