Sister Faustina Kowalska: Her LIfe and MIssion

executive of God’s will. At least, th a t is w ha t she had he rse lf believed. But h is ta sk - as it tu rned out - was confined to the ordering and carrying out of all th a t concerned the official and liturgical side of the devotion. However, she had received h e r own role to be per­ formed independently: to b ring in g re a t numbers of sacrificial souls, who would give themselves up to the new apostolate. She was to th ink of a new congregation completely devoted to repara tion to the divine justice for the sins of the world and to p rayer beseeching mercy for sinners. This happened no t long after the end of the Jubilee celebrations. I t is sadly impossible to establish the exact date of th is new divine inspiration. S ister Fau s tina , who until now had noted down the desires of Jesus with scrupulous detail, gave the la te s t with g rea t reserve, sk irting th e problem while full of misgivings. The f irs t record of th is, with no date, comes from May 1935: “When I became, azvare o f Qod's great plans fo r me, I zvas frightened at tfieir greatness and f e l t myself quite incapable o f fu lfilling them, and I began to avoid interior conversations zvith Odim, filling up the time zvith vocal prayer. I d id this out o f humility, but I soon recognized it zvas not true humility, but rather a great temptation from the devil. “When, on one occasion, instead o f interior prayer, I took up a booh, o f spiritual reading, I heard these zvords spoken distinctly and forcefully zvithin my soul, 'fou zv ill prepare the zvorld fo r ‘My fin a l coming.' ‘These zvords moved me deeply, and although I pretended not to hear them, I understood them very zvell and had no doubt about them. Once, being tired out from this battle o f love zvith Qod, and making constant excuses on the grounds that I zvas unable to carry out this ta sk I zvanted to leave the chapel, but some force held me back 222