Fall-Winter 2013-2014

24 M arian H elper • F all /W inter 2013 •  www.marian.org I n this jaded age in which few things are taken at face value anymore, who among us hasn’t been left standing in the wreck- age of some form of broken trust? Maybe it’s trust broken in families, in friendships, in the government, in the crimi- nal justice system, in the economy, or — yes — in the Church itself. But when Pope John Paul II canonized Sr. Maria Faustina Kowalska in 2000, making her the “first saint of the new millennium,” he presented to the world a mystic and powerful intercessor particularly suited to our wary times. So who is this saint and modern-day prophet whose legacy we celebrated on Oct. 5, the 75th anniversary of her death? With only a couple years of formal education and hailing from a poor farming community in Poland, Sr. Faustina was tapped by Jesus to become the great apostle of Divine Mercy. Jesus told her to write down His revelations of Divine Mercy and share them with the world. How could she possibly do that since she lived in a convent as a nun? It was precisely in the crucible of fulfill- ing her mission that she learned to trust completely in the Lord Jesus, as He revealed Himself to her. Chief among her great legacies is that she provides us with a deeper understanding of the very One we can trust unequivocally: Jesus Christ. Who is He? In terms that couldn’t be any more con- cise, Jesus told St. Faustina during a series of revelations in the 1930s, “Mankind will not have peace until it turns with trust to My mercy” ( Diary of St. Faustina , 300). Let’s talk about this matter of trust. We commonly understand the word to describe a firm belief in the dependability, truth, or strength of someone or something. But when we encounter Jesus in St. Faustina’s Diary , another definition of trust seems to take precedence: Something or someone committed unconditionally into the care of another. We are called to be that “someone.” It is into Christ’s care that we are unconditionally A matter of trust Through St. Faustina, we can learn to trust completely in the Lord Jesus as she did with the simple words: “Jesus, I trust in You!” On the 75th anniversary of her death, we look at St. Faustina’s greatest legacy. by Felix Carroll F elix C arroll