St. Faustina is known as the Apostle of Divine Mercy. Helen Kowalska was born on August 25, 1905, in the Polish village of Glogowiec, the third of ten children. She came from a poor family but rich in faith and the love of God. From her earliest days she desired to give her life entirely to Jesus in some way. After a period of trying to enjoy worldly pleasures like dancing she had a vision of Jesus crucified who asked her how long he must put up with her.

Immediately she set out to discover God's will for her life and to enter a convent, as Jesus revealed to her. She joined the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy. Here she lived the rest of her life, only thirteen years. She was known for her recollection, humility and charity to the poor. She received the nickname of "the lawyer" from some of her sisters because of her tendency to animate her conversations with hand gestures.

The sisters did not realize that Jesus had been communing intimately with her soul, even appearing to her regularly with messages of his mercy for the world, telling her that she was to have an image of Divine Mercy painted with the words "Jesus I trust in You" at the bottom. He also told her that he desired that a special feast of Mercy be established in the Church, the second Sunday after Easter (Pope John Paul II established this feast in the year 2000 for the universal Church).

God also taught her to pray a special chaplet of Divine Mercy, promising that he would grant abundant graces through this prayer, especially mercy for dying sinners. Her spiritual director told her to write her experiences with the Lord in a diary, which she did. This has been published after her death and is now a spiritual classic, containing profound truths of God's nature as mercy and love itself. She was convinced that her mission would begin at her death, and that God would use her to spread his mercy in the world. Jesus told her that he was sending her as his apostle of mercy to the world before the day of his judgement. He told her, "you will prepare the world for my second coming."

After enduring intense physical sufferings, some caused by natural sources, others by supernatural ones, such as experiencing the pains of our Lord's passion, Sister Faustina died at the age of thirty-three on October 5, 1938 in the convent of her congregation at Lagienwniki in Cracow, Poland. Gradually the sisters became aware that she was the one Jesus had been revealing his Divine Mercy to the world through. Many were shocked, as Sister Faustina seemed so ordinary, other than her deep recollection.

Sister Faustina was beatified on April 18, 1993. She was canonized on April 30, 2000, the first Sunday after Easter, on Divine Mercy Sunday. To learn more about her life and the Message of Divine Mercy, click on the following link and go to the top link: Message of Divine Mercy St. Faustina, pray for us.