Faustina Kowalska family name Kowalska
Maria Faustyna Kowalska, OLM (born Helena Kowalska; 25 August 1905 – 5 October 1938), also known as Maria Faustyna Kowalska of the Blessed Sacrament, was a Polish Catholic religious sister and mystic. Faustyna, popularly spelled "Faustina", had apparitions of Jesus Christ which inspired the Roman Catholic devotion to the Divine Mercy and earned her the title of "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.
The Catholic Church canonized Kowalska as a saint on 30 April 2000. The mystic is classified in the liturgy as a virgin and is venerated within the church as the "Apostle of Divine Mercy". Her tomb is in Divine Sanctuary, Kraków-Łagiewniki, where she spent the end of her life and met confessor Józef Andrasz, who also supported the message of mercy.Early life
She was born Helena Kowalska on 25 August 1905 in Głogowiec, Łęczyca County, northwest of Łódź, in Poland. She was the third of ten children of Stanisław Kowalski and Marianna Kowalska. Her father was a carpenter and a peasant, and the family was poor and religious.She later stated that she first felt a calling to the religious life while she attended the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament at the age of seven. She wanted to enter the convent after she had completed her time at school, but her parents would not give her permission. When she was 16, she went to work as a housekeeper, first in Aleksandrów Łódzki, where she received the Sacrament of Confirmation, then in Łódź, to support herself and to help her parents.
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