Pillars of Fire In My Soul

In the convent of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, Sister Faustina (as Helen was called from the time she received the habit and veil) was given the most lowly of tasks: working in the kitchen or the vegetable garden, acting as porter. She was not well educated, having had only a couple of years of formal schooling. The notebooks of her diary are full of misspellings and errors in punctuation. Yet what shines out is her willingness to love and serve the Lord as she was gifted and as she was called. This is a sign of the humility she practiced. Even in the simple positions she held in the convent, some- times Sister Faustina was asked to do things that were beyond her capabilities and knowledge. Humility allowed her to accept her limitations, and she knew to turn to Jesus for help in accomplish- ing what needed to be done. Once, fairly early on in her life in the convent, Sister Faustina was left in charge of the kitchen while the sisters who normally ran the kitchen were off the premises with other duties. On that hot August day, at a time in history when refrigeration was unavailable, someone donated a whole cow, ready to be butchered, to the convent. Sister Faustina had no butchering skills and did not know much about preserving meat. The other kitchen helpers knew even less than she. Instead of panicking, Sister Faustina instructed the other sis- ters to help her finish the chores that they did know how to do. Then, because she knew her limitations, she had them all go into the convent chapel where they prayed in front of the Blessed Sacrament for guidance with dealing with the cow. God is so good and merciful! Even in a matter as seemingly trivial as this, God immediately answered Faustina’s plea for help. Upon returning to the kitchen, she directed the butchering and preserving of the meat according to God’s guidance. When the sister who usually was in charge of the kitchen and food preparation examined the work, she said that Faustina had done exactly what she herself would have done. In fact, the meat was so well preserved that none of it went bad, and the sisters were able to make good use of it all. 148 Pillars of Fire in My Soul