Life of St. Maria Faustina

 

Birth and Call of God

 

Sister Faustina was born on August 25, 1905, in the village of Glogowiec, in Lodz, Poland to Marianna and Stanislaw Kowalski as the third of ten children. Two days later she was baptised with the name Helena in the parish church of Swinice warckie. At the age of 9, she made her first Holy Communion.

 

She attended elementary school for merely three years and then she went to work as a housekeeper in various well-to- do in Aleksandrow and Lodz. God’s call: From the age of seven, she had felt the calling for religious vocation, but her parents would not give her permission to enter the convent. However, impelled by the vision of the Suffering Chirst, in July 1924 she left to Warsaw to find a place. On August 1, 1925, she entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in Warsaw.

 

“From today on you shall not be called by your baptismal name, you shall be called Sister Maria Faustyna”, Helen heard these words during the ceremony of first vows on 30 April 1926. After taking her first vows Sister Faustina stayed for a few months in Kraków. She lived in the Congregation for thirteen years, staying in many houses, working as a cook, shop assistant in baker’s shop, gardener, and portress.