Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska of the Most Blessed Sacrament OLM

Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska of the Most Blessed Sacrament OLM ( b. 25 August 1905 – d. 5 October 1938), was a Polish Roman Catholic religious sister and numbered among the most outstanding mystics of the Church.

Her apparitions of Jesus Christ recorded in her diary has inspired the Catholic devotion to her and to the Divine Mercy,

so much so that she is known all over the world as “The Apostle of Divine Mercy” and “The Secretary of Divine Mercy”.

Saint Maria Faustyna Kowalska painting by Richard L George webpage image

Visions of Jesus and Conversations with Him

Throughout her life, Saint Faustina 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 religious convent in Warsaw, Poland. 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. Jesus asked her to paint Him as He appeared to her with the words added to the painting “Jesus I Trust in You.” Therefore, with the help of Father Michał Sopoćko, Saint Faustina commissioned an artist to paint the first Divine Mercy image, based on her vision of Jesus.