Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska by Maria Faustyna Kowalska

The second, better known version of the painting “Jesus, I trust in You!” is the one created after the death of Faustina in 1943 in Krakow, painted according to instructions of Sopoćko by Adolf Hyła. Today, this image is located in the church of Divine Mercy in Vilnius and is one of the two most popular versions of the image. The image was painted in Vilnius by Eugeniusz Kazimirowski, according to the direct instructions of Faustina. In turn, the first picture of Merciful Jesus, ordered during her mystical visions, was created in 1934. At the same time, during the revelations, Faustina was ordered to establish the celebration of Divine Mercy, which was to take place on the first Sunday after Easter.įrom 1933, Faustina was under the spiritual protection of a personal confessor, Michał Sopoćko, today the blessed of the Catholic Church. During the revelations, he instructed Faustina to paint a picture of Merciful Jesus with an aspiration prayer – “Jesus, I trust in You!” This image became one of the basic elements of the Divine Mercy devotion. Her first revelations took place in Płock in February 1931 when Jesus appeared personally to her. She worked, among others things as a porter, gardener and salesclerk in a bakery run by the order. In the order she performed various services, most often involving hard physical work. She lived successively in Wilno (Vilnius), in Warsaw at Żytnia St., later Hetmańska St., in Płock, again in Vilnius, Walendów, Derdy and then again in Krakow, where she died in 1938. She made her first vows in Łagiewniki in 1928, and in 1933 – her perpetual vows. In 1925, she joined the order and a year later her investiture took place and took the religious name of Maria Faustina. Finally, Helena was accepted by the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, provided that she paid a dowry for which she worked for a year.

Due to the fact that she was poor, her candidacy was rejected by several orders for which she was convinced that she had a religious vocation. She graduated only three classes of primary school, and from the age of 16 she worked as domestic help, first in Aleksandrów Łódzki, later in Łódź and then in Warsaw.

Helena Kowalska, because this was the name of Maria Faustina before she joined the convent, was born in 1905 in Głogowiec, a town in central Poland, today in the Łódź region, near Łęczyca. Images of Merciful Jesus inspired by her visions can also be found in churches around the world. is the hour of Divine Mercy and that is when believers say the chaplet prayer left by Faustina Kowalska, a Polish religious nun belonging to the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy. The character of the cult is undoubtedly universal – whether in Latin America or Japan, Australia or Poland – 3 p.m. The cult of Divine Mercy, which has its roots in Poland, is one of the most important and widespread forms of Catholic devotion both at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries.

Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska by Maria Faustyna Kowalska