Faustina Kowalska
Maria Faustyna Kowalska of the Blessed Sacrament, OLM (25 August 1905 – 5 October 1938) was a Polish Catholic religious sister and mystic. Faustyna, popularly spelled Faustina in English, had apparitions of Jesus Christ which inspired the Catholic devotion to the Divine Mercy, therefore she is sometimes called the "secretary" of Divine Mercy.
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. Her biography, submitted to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, quoted some of the conversations with Jesus regarding the Divine Mercy devotion.
At the age of 20 years, she joined a convent in Warsaw. She was later transferred to Płock and then to Vilnius, where she met Father Michał Sopoćko, who was to be her confessor and spiritual director, and who supported her devotion to the Divine Mercy. With this priest's help, Kowalska commissioned an artist to paint the first Divine Mercy image, based on her vision of Jesus. Father Sopoćko celebrated Mass in the presence of this painting on Low Sunday, also known as the Second Sunday of Easter or (as established by Pope John Paul II), Divine Mercy Sunday.
In the Martyrology
- October 5 Saint Faustina Kowalska, virgin of the Sisters of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy, visionary of Jesus of Divine Mercy