Sister Faustina Kowalska: Her LIfe and MIssion

Reassured over his fears t h a t S ister F au s tina m igh t be of unsound m ind, and hav ing learned the worth of the cha rac ter of his unu sua l pen iten t, F a th e r Sopocko did no t long delay, and a fte r a period of about five months’ observation of her, he proceeded to act. I t was no t in h is n a tu re to postpone unsolved problems, the more so as th e re was the probability th a t i t was the will of God to tackle them. S is te r F au s tina underw en t th is whole period of hum ilia ting tes ting in these mon ths w ithout protest. In h e r Diary we find no words of accusation, which is the more noticeable as she often had the h ab i t of grumbling to Je su s about various people. Fa the r Sopocko is indeed the subject of h e r though ts and "conversations" with Jesu s , b u t the tone of w ha t she writes about him is always full of respect and affection, which is expressed in various forms of fervent p rayer for him . She writes: *'fa the r Sopocko must 6e w e ll loved by Qod. I say this because I myself have experienced how much Qod defends him at certain moments. When I see this, I rejoice greatly that Qod has such chosen ones." (Diary, Notebook I, para . 63). To augm en t th is picture, we should add th a t F a th e r Sopocko did no t leave S ister F au s tin a w ithout guidance even du ring the period when he was tes ting her. He drew h e r a tten tion to the dangers which th rea tened , as well as to the necessity of developing the righ t a ttitude w ithin herself. One of the f i rs t pieces of advice he gave h e r was as follows: "Without humility, zve cannot be pleasing to Qod. tPractise the third degree o f humility; that is, not only must one refrain from explaining and defending oneself zvhen reproached zvith something, but one should rejoice a t the humiliation. 157