Sister Faustina?
I never heard of her or her prayers of Divine Mercy until I started listening to EWTN and Relevant Radio (seems to be sponsored by Opus Dei) - does anyone know the background of this "saint?" Only once in a church did I ever hear her mentioned from the pulpit and that was in a very conservative, super pro-life parish. Thanks.
sarisataka
(18,679 posts)my wife chose when converting to Catholicism.
Facts
Feastday: October 5
Birth: 1905
Death: 1938
Beatified By: Pope John Paul II
Canonized By: Pope John Paul II
Saint Faustina was born Helena Kowalska in a small village west of Lodz, Poland on August 25, 1905. She was the third of ten children. When she was almost twenty, she entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, whose members devote themselves to the care and education of troubled young women. The following year she received her religious habit and was given the name Sister Maria Faustina, to which she added, "of the Most Blessed Sacrament", as was permitted by her congregation's custom. In the 1930's, Sister Faustina received from the Lord a message of mercy that she was told to spread throughout the world. She was asked to become the apostle and secretary of God's mercy, a model of how to be merciful to others, and an instrument for reemphasizing God's plan of mercy for the world. It was not a glamorous prospect.
Her entire life, in imitation of Christ's, was to be a sacrifice - a life lived for others. At the Divine Lord's request, she willingly offered her personal sufferings in union with Him to atone for the sins of others; in her daily life she was to become a doer of mercy, bringing joy and peace to others, and by writing about God's mercy, she was to encourage others to trust in Him and thus prepare the world for His coming again. Her special devotion to Mary Immaculate and to the sacraments of Eucharist and Reconciliation gave her the strength to bear all her sufferings as an offering to God on behalf of the Church and those in special need, especially great sinners and the dying.
She wrote and suffered in secret, with only her spiritual director and some of her superiors aware that anything special was taking place in her life. After her death from tuberculosis in 1938, even her closest associates were amazed as they began to discover what great sufferings and deep mystical experiences had been given to this Sister of theirs, who had always been so cheerful and humble. She had taken deeply into her heart, God's gospel command to "be merciful even as your heavenly Father is merciful" as well as her confessor's directive that she should act in such a way that everyone who came in contact with her would go away joyful. The message of mercy that Sister Faustina received is now being spread throughout the world; her diary, Divine Mercy in my Soul, has become the handbook for devotion to the Divine Mercy.
No Vested Interest
(5,167 posts)who belongs to a Roman Catholic Church for Polish people.
One of the side altars honors St. Faustina.
Although I had heard of Sr. Faustina and the Divine Mercy devotion, I wasn't aware of its depth among so many until my son's connection to it.
I attribute the growth and spread of the devotion to St. John Paul II.
It likely is more practiced in the parishes that are religiously conservative; those same parishes may also be more conservative politically.
One of the beauties of the Catholic church is the variety of cultural practices; we can choose which most closely fits our own beliefs and feels most comfortable to us.
rug
(82,333 posts)John Paul II certainly knew of her before his pontificate and she became much more known outside of Poland during it.
I went to the Divine Mercy Shrine in Stockbridge Massachusetts over the summer, http://thedivinemercy.org/shrine/ , and what I saw in their book store had a distinctly conservative tilt.
That said, John Paul II dedicated the Sunday after Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday which I don't think is a bad thing as far as it goes. We all need to be reminded of the infinite mercy we're shown.