Sister Faustina Kowalska: Her LIfe and MIssion

profound peace that accompanied them at that time and that s t i l l remains zvith me. (Ihis peace gives me such great strength and pozver that a ll difficulties, adversities, sufferings, and death i tse l f are as nothing. (Tfus light gave me a glimpse o f the truth that a ll my efforts to hring souls to knozv the mercy of the Lord are very pleasing to Qod. JAndfrom this springs such great jo y in my soul that I do not fnozv zvhether it could he any greater in heaven." (Diary, Notebook I, para . 359). The very dates, of the two accounts by S ister F au s ­ t in a th a t we have here quoted of h e r "conversations" with Jesus , speak for themselves. A period of seven months separa tes them , and the re is a m arked change of tone. The la s t "conversation" shows th a t indeed he r doubts have not ye t vanished, b u t th a t she already accepts the explanations of Je su s with a completely open soul, and th a t they totally satisfy her. But i t was not only doubts which torm en ted her. Equally painful was a feeling of h e r own incapability and powerlessness. She had expressed th is many times to Jesus when the problem of the pa in ting of the image arose, and she confessed th is feeling to Him again about the difficulties of estab lish ing the F ea s t of Divine Mercy and the spreading of the devotion. She felt helpless in the face of the duty imposed on her. There seemed no way out. There was not even a clue as to how to approach it. Je su s did not leave h e r w ithou t support when she experienced th is overwhelming sense of impotence: "Once the Lord sa id to me, 'Act (ike a Beggar zvho does not Back, azvay zvhen he g e ts more alms [than he asked fork But offers thanks the more ferven tly, f o i l too should not Back, azvay and say that you are not zvorthy 204