Sister Faustina Kowalska: Her LIfe and MIssion

Although S is ter F au s tina in general was though t o as an ideal nun, nevertheless th e re m igh t be suspicion th a t these transfers were disciplinary and undertakei no t only with the needs of the various religious house; in mind. H er apostolic activity sometimes createt s itua tions which were troublesome for h e r superiors Her ra th e r too rigid a ttitud e to th e faithful observanct of the Rule and convent regulations, which annoyec certain sisters, was commented on. I t then happenec th a t b i t te r antagonism broke out. So th a t the statemen th a t S ister F au s tina was frequently tran sfe rred fron place to place should not rem a in unsupported , I hav< included an itinerarium of h e r life in the Congregatior in a separate table. As the tab le shows, S ister F au s tina in the 13 years of h e r life in the Congregation, was 4 times in om place for longer than a year. The First time was in the years 1926-1929 - i.e. for 2 years 9 months in the novitiate house in Cracow, which is understandab le for th is was the period of h e r religious formation. The second, a two-and-a-half-year period, was a t Plock in the years 1933-1932; the th ird was a period of almost th ree years in Vilnius in the years 1933-1936, and the fourth, beginning in Cracow in 1936, lasted un til her death. This last period, which ended her earthly travels, resu lted not from p lanning b u t from necessity. She was then too ill to fulfil normal religious duties. Physical weakness kep t he r tied to the Cracow house, which she left only for periodic stays in the hospital a t Pr^dnik. These four longer stays a t pa rticu la r houses add up to ten and a h a l f years of h e r religious life. For the remaining two and a h a l f years, she was 11 times moved from house to house. W ithin these four longer stays, th e chief p a r t of S ister F au s tin a ’s religious life was contained. The f irs t and la s t were, by God’s will, destined for her own formation: the first, so th a t she m igh t perform h e r life’s apostolate on the earth , the la s t on h e r way to eternity; the two middle periods contained the revelations of Je su s concerning the devotion to the Divine Mercy. 102