Mystic · Contemporary
St. Faustina Kowalska
1905–1938 · Divine Mercy
Helena Kowalska; Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy; canonized 2000 by St. John Paul II, who instituted Divine Mercy Sunday the same day.
A Polish peasant's daughter with three years of schooling who served as cook, gardener and porter in her congregation's houses and died of tuberculosis at thirty-three. Her Diary records Christ's request for an image signed “Jesus, I trust in You,” a feast of Mercy on the Sunday after Easter with a promise attached to confession and Communion, the chaplet and the hour of His death. It insists that the greatest sinners have the greatest right to mercy, describes a vision of hell she was told to record so that no one could say it does not exist, and offers her own sufferings for sinners.
Why he matters: The Divine Mercy devotion is one of the most widespread in the modern Church, and through John Paul II it entered the liturgical calendar.
Where to be careful
In 1959 the Holy Office forbade spreading the devotion in the forms she proposed, chiefly on the basis of faulty texts and translations; the ban was lifted in 1978. Her Diary is private revelation.
Documented positions
Where this thinker stands on each dispute the test covers.