Sister Faustina Kowalska: Her LIfe and MIssion

THE YEARS IN VILNIUS - THE PORT IS IN SIGHT For a month a fte r h e r perpe tua l vows, S is te r F au s ­ t in a waited in Cracow to be re-assigned to work. As, by he lp ing in the garden, she was generally working alone, she used the time to make a r e t r e a t in the style of St Igna tius , which gave h e r th e opportunity to reflect on the meaning of h e r vows, and once again to consider how she was to act in h e r life as Je su s ’ spouse so as to fulfil worthily those duties in pa rticu la r which had been laid on h e r before h e r vows. She was assigned to Vilnius. Depressed, she though t how fa r from Cracow th a t was. Probably no depa rtu re from the Cracow house cost h e r as much as the p resen t one. She would have to leave th e p ries t who, having understood h e r special vocation, h ad already begun to pu t h e r inn e r life in order: he explained h e r unce rta in ­ ties and the complications in which she h e rse lf was confused, and he was directing h e r on the righ t p a th of conduct. Hardly had she begun to feel secure unde r the direction of F a th e r Andrasz, S.J., when God, in the nam e of religious obedience, snatched h e r away from him for the sp iritua l unknown. In th is atmosphere of re tu rn in g fears, S ister F au s tina though t th e fac t th a t she h ad received perm ission to v is it J a sn a Gora in Czestochowa, to see the m iraculous shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa, was a special act of Divine Providence. She s a t th e re for m any hours, and travelled on now much more a t peace, for she had 147