Sister Faustina Kowalska: Her LIfe and MIssion

has the strength to hear so mueh suffering." I t -was i f I were facing two groups o f judges... ‘There is no longer anything in me that had escaped the sisters' judgment." (Diary, Notebook I, para. 125 e t seq.) 7 could now see that everywhere I was heing watched like a thief: in the chapel; while I was carrying out my duties; in my ceCC... dhere were times when I wondered whether I should undress to wash myself or not. Indeed, even that poor hed o f mine was checked many times”. (Diary, Notebook, I, para. 128). Used, un til now, to living in an atmosphere of t ru s t and th e sense of inner freedom th a t th is brings, S ister Fau s tina did no t know how to s tee r a course between all these complicated tra i ls of sensational rumours. Everything around h e r seemed h a rd to grasp, incom­ prehensible and unimaginable, nor could she find h e rse lf in the m idst of i t all. She had so far lost herse lf as not to believe in h e r own hea lthy common sense. She checked on he rse lf through others. When S ister Simone N . , a friend of hers , a fte r making h e r final vows, on h e r way back to Biala stayed one n igh t in Plock, S is te r F au s tina posed h e r an unexpected ques­ tion: "Sister Simone, we have not much time to talk, hut tell me what you have heard about me." Of course a reques t like th a t m u s t have su rp rised h e r friend, who, knowing no th ing of the reasons for w ha t seemed strange behaviour for her, was scandalised and answ er­ ed, "Nothing" and felt th a t S is te r F au s tin a "thought too much about herself, since she was interested in what was being sa id o f her" (Archives of S.F., Recollections). A sim ilar s ta te of nervous tension continued th rough ­ out the en tire time of S is ter F au s t in a ’s stay in Plock. Depressed more and more by the opinion of those around her, which h ad begun to overwhelm h e r own judgment, S ister F au s tina records: 119