Who was St. Faustina? A Quick Summary of this Critical Saint for Today

[Music] hi i'm father chris aylar and welcome to another edition of ask a marian this week's question comes from sherry from minneapolis minnesota who asks there is so much about st faustina online it is hard to sift through it all father could you give me just a quick summary about who she was and why she was so important well you know what that's a great question sherry because next week is the feast of saint faustina on october the 5th so coming up tuesday now this is really really important because of how god used her so let's try our best to summarize saint faustina since the fall of adam and eve god has been trying to bring us now skittish and fearful creatures back to himself in the garden god gave us the promise of a savior and the gift of a mother god wanted us to learn how to ask for his mercy be merciful to others and completely trust in his mercy well mankind we didn't really listen too well so this savior jesus christ enlisted some help over the centuries of some great prophets and saints not that he needed the help but that's how god chooses to work and one of the greatest was maria faustina kovalska better known as saint faustina in the 1930s jesus gave faustina five new channels of grace known as the devotion of divine mercy the feast the image the novena the chaplet and the hour of mercy to help us better live the message of divine mercy or ask for mercy be merciful to each other and completely trust those are how we are judged now john paul 2 he called divine mercy the most important message of our times it is so important that jesus said divine mercy is quote mankind's last hope for salvation end quote and he told st faustina that she would help him prepare the world for his final coming wow that was 90 years ago so nobody can say that god hasn't given us ample time to prepare okay with the help of this top tier saint as we call her whose feast day we celebrate as i said next tuesday october 5th we can be prepared so what is it about or this special well all right she was born in 1905 as helena kovalska on a small rural farm uh in poland and her father was a peasant carpenter and her family while very poor was very religious and she was the third of 10 children and her job on the farm was actually to break up dirt clods so she was a dirt clawed breaker of her now at the age of 19 faustina and her sister natalia went to a dance in a park in poland there she had a vision of the suffering jesus and he asked her how long she was going to make him wait she took that to mean she better respond to him maybe religious life or whatever it might be she immediately went to the cathedral and there jesus told her that she was to leave for warsaw at once and join a convent well she did even without the permission of her parents and without any knowing anyone in warsaw talk about trust right so faustina approached several convents but was turned down every time because of her low social status she could barely read and write and she only had really three years of formal education eventually though she was accepted at the sisters of our lady of mercy now she knew nothing about the comments she was joining other than jesus led her there which is a good reason again that was trust she took the religious name sister maria faustina of the blessed sacrament with faustina meaning fortunate or blessed one now she did such duty she was a cook she was a gardener she was even a portrait which means she opened the door for people which is a good act of mercy remember our daily acts of mercy spending her time between eight different convents in poland and modern-day lithuania now here's where it all began on february 22nd 1931 she was in her cell in plots cuolin and jesus appeared to her as the king of divine mercy he appeared in person it wasn't just some locution or some internal vision he appeared in person wearing a white garment with red and pale rays emanating from his heart and telling saint faustina that now is the time of mercy and for us not to miss this time of grace because after it would come the time of justice now her very special confessor blessed michael cepachko told her to record the conversations and messages she was receiving from jesus which today we know as the divine mercy in my soul or the diary of saint faustina and in 1934 this confessor sapaco introduced her to an artist named eugene kasmarowski and they worked together to paint the image of divine mercy based on the pattern that she saw and jesus instructed her now we know that this image of divine mercy today has many promises given to those who venerate this image well it gets better then in april 1935 sapachiko again did the first sermon now on divine mercy with saint faustina in attendance this was the very first public divine mercy sunday jesus then gave her next the chaplet of divine mercy to obtain mercy to trust in christ's mercy and to show mercy to others in fact one of my favorite lines in the diary it says jesus told her that priests will recommend the chaplet to sinners as their last hope of salvation so yes i'm a priest i am recommending this prayer so very important you know for this mission saint faustini was given many graces she had visions of heaven hell and purgatory she had the ability to bi locate means she could be at two places at one time she had the grace to read souls she's a big hitter here and she did though suffer tremendously in fact her sisters even thought sometimes she was faking and but she offered up these sufferings to atone for the sins of the whole world and this is very important she even suffered the pain of an abortion three times losing consciousness in order to offer reparation to god for the souls murdered in the womb of mothers you know god though however did give consolations as well one of my favorite examples is that faustina is one of only three people ever to behold the seraphim angel along with the prophet isaiah and saint francis so to finish here in 1937 she had a vision of her own canonization and the feast of divine mercy where she saw saint peter actually there whisper in the holy father's ear was this god's desire to through saint peter tell the holy father to institute this feast and to announce it well it wasn't planned but jp2 did proclaim it on that day so wow that's powerful to think of saint peter whispered in his ear to tell him to do it amazing now faustina died of tuberculosis on october 5th 1938 which is now as we said her feast day just three years later however one of our marian priests father joseph giorgiombolsky took the divine mercy material on a miraculous journey to the united states from poland and by the end of 1941 millions of divine mercy prayer cards were printed and even reached the philippines and other places in world war ii and that began it all the key was the association of marian helpers started in 1944 right here in stockbridge you know you can share in st faustina's mission by becoming a member of our association by visiting mic micprayers.org it takes less than 10 seconds doesn't cost anything but you can share in tremendous graces of our masses rosaries prayers penances just like you were mary and priests amazing so yes it is true that in 1959 rome had a ban on circulation of the image and writings that promulgated or promoted divine mercy but this ban was lifted in 1978 when it was found that it had a faulty translation so shortly afterwards our very own father seraphim smuggled out pictures of the diary and had them translated into english so god wanted this message spread around the world and we marians have been doing that so john paul ii the amazing pope he said quote it is precisely to this poor girl a girl from nowhere that god entrusted the mission of announcing to the whole world the most important message of the 20th century what was her mission teaching us about trust and mercy and divine mercy then became one of the greatest grassroots movement in the history of the catholic church thank you sherry for a great question and may almighty god bless you all the father the son and the holy spirit amen

Channel: Divine Mercy

Views: 17,000

Rating: 4.9841743 out of 5

Keywords: Divine Mercy, Divine, Mercy, Divine Mercy Official, Shrine of Divine Mercy, National Shrine of Divine Mercy, Shrine, Mass, Holy Mass, Rosary, Holy Rosary, Divine Mercy Rosary, Chaplet, Divine Mercy Chaplet, Chaplet of Divine Mercy, Catholic, God, Jesus, Christ, Mary, Mother of God, St. Faustina, Faustina, Marian, Marians, priest, catholic teaching, spiritual, grace, pray, prays, praying, spirituality, Chris alar, Fr. Chris Alar, Fr. Chris, Alar, Diary of St. Faustina, Divine Mercy Sunday

Id: q0PAC9qTc_E

Length: 9min 58sec (598 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 30 2021