Faustina Kowalska

Saint Maria Faustyna Kowalska of the Blessed Sacrament, O.L.M., popularly spelled as Sister Faustina (born as Helena Kowalska, 25 August 1905 in Głogowiec – 5 October 1938 in Kraków, Poland), was a Polish religious, Christian mystic, and nun. Her claims of receiving apparitions of Jesus Christ inspired the Roman Catholic devotion known as the Divine Mercy.

Throughout her life, Faustina reported having visions of Jesus and conversations with him, which she wrote about in her diary, later published as the book The Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul. Her biography submitted to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints quotes some of these reputed conversations regarding the Divine Mercy devotion.

At age 20 she joined a convent in Warsaw and was later transferred to Płock and then to Vilnius where she met her confessor, Father Michał Sopoćko, who supported her devotion to the Divine Mercy. Faustina and Sopoćko directed an artist to paint the first Divine Mercy image, based on Faustina's reported vision of Jesus. Sopoćko used the image to celebrate the first Mass on the first Sunday after Easter - which later was established by Pope John Paul II as the Feast of Divine Mercy Sunday.