34 Facts About Faustina Kowalska

Faustyna, popularly spelled "Faustina Kowalska", had apparitions of Jesus Christ which inspired the Catholic devotion to the Divine Mercy, therefore she is sometimes called the "secretary" of Divine Mercy.

Faustina Kowalska's biography, submitted to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, quoted some of the conversations with Jesus regarding the Divine Mercy devotion.

Faustina Kowalska's tomb is in the Divine Mercy Sanctuary, Krakow, where she spent the end of her life and met confessor Jozef Andrasz, who supported the message of mercy.

Faustina Kowalska's father was a carpenter and a peasant, and the family was poor and religious.

Faustina Kowalska 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.

Faustina Kowalska wanted to enter the convent after she had completed her time at school, but her parents would not give her permission.

Faustina Kowalska took a train for Warsaw, some 85 miles away, without asking her parents' permission and despite the fact that she knew nobody in Warsaw.

In 1925, Faustina Kowalska worked as a housemaid to save the money she needed, making deposits at the convent throughout the year and was finally accepted, as the Mother Superior had promised.

In November 1932, Faustina Kowalska returned to Warsaw to prepare to take her final vows as a nun, by which she would become in perpetuity a sister of Our Lady of Mercy.

In late May 1933, Faustina Kowalska was transferred to Vilnius to work as the gardener; her tasks included growing vegetables.

Faustina Kowalska remained in Vilnius for about three years, until March 1936.

Shortly after arriving in Vilnius, Faustina Kowalska met the priest Michael Sopocko, the newly appointed confessor to the nuns.

Faustina Kowalska was a professor of pastoral theology at Stefan Batory University, now called Vilnius University.

When Faustina Kowalska went for the first time to this priest for confession, she told him that she had been conversing with Jesus, who had a plan for her.

Sopocko then began to have confidence in Faustina Kowalska and supported her efforts.

Faustina Kowalska told Sopocko about the Divine Mercy image, and in January 1934, Sopocko introduced her to the artist Eugene Kazimierowski, who was a professor at the university.

Faustina Kowalska wrote in her diary that on Good Friday, 19 April 1935, Jesus told her that he wanted the Divine Mercy image to be publicly honoured.

On 13 and 14 September 1935, while still in Vilnius, Faustina Kowalska wrote of two visions about the Chaplet of Divine Mercy in her diary.

Faustina Kowalska wrote that the purpose for the chaplet's prayers for mercy is threefold: to obtain mercy, to trust in Christ's mercy, and to show mercy to others.

In November 1935, Faustina Kowalska wrote the rules for a new contemplative religious congregation devoted to the Divine Mercy.

In March 1936, Faustina Kowalska told her superiors that she was thinking of leaving the congregation to start a new one that was specifically devoted to Divine Mercy, but she was transferred to Walendow, southwest of Warsaw.

Later in 1936, Faustina Kowalska became ill with what has since been speculated to be tuberculosis.

Faustina Kowalska was moved to the sanatorium in Pradnik, Krakow.

Faustina Kowalska continued to spend much time in prayer in reciting the chaplet and praying for the conversion of sinners.

On 23 March 1937, Faustina Kowalska wrote in her diary that she had a vision that the feast of the Divine Mercy would be celebrated in her local chapel and would be attended by large crowds and that the same celebration would be held in Rome, attended by the pope.

On 10 November 1937, Mother Irene, Faustina Kowalska's superior, showed her the booklets while Faustina Kowalska rested in her bed.

Faustina Kowalska died at the age of 33, on 5 October 1938, in Krakow.

Faustina Kowalska's diary is the only mystical text composed in Polish.

The handwritten pages of Faustina Kowalska's diary turned into about 700 printed pages, published as the book Diary: Divine Mercy in My Soul.

Faustina Kowalska died in April 2005, on the eve of Divine Mercy Sunday, and was himself beatified by his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, on Divine Mercy Sunday, 1 May 2011, and was canonized by Pope Francis on Divine Mercy Sunday, 27 April 2014.

Faustina Kowalska was canonised on 30 April 2000, and her feast day is 5 October.

In October 2011, a group of cardinals and bishops sent a petition to Pope Benedict XVI for Faustina Kowalska to be made a Doctor of the Church.

The formal beatification of Faustina Kowalska involved the case of Maureen Digan of Massachusetts.

The miracle that led to the canonization of Faustina Kowalska was the case of the priest Ronald Pytel from Baltimore.