Sister Faustina Kowalska: Her LIfe and MIssion

’S ind a d o f a sudden, my souC zvas flooded zvith the light o f the knowledge o f Qod... ‘When I returned to my room, i t seemed to me that I zvas coming from real life to death. ‘When the doctor came to take my guise, ho zvas surprised: 'Sister, zvhat happened? f o u have never had a pulse (ike this! I zvould like to knozv zvhat has speeded it up so much." ‘What could I te ll him, zvhen I myself d id not knozv that my pulse zvas so rapid. I only knozv that I am dying o f yearning fo r Qod, hut this I d id not tell him, fo r hozv can medicine help in this instance?’ (Diary, Notebook II, para . 970) So certain symptoms, occurring now from time to time, cannot be placed in the p a t te rn the doctors have envisaged up to now of th e disease from which S is ter F au s tin a is suffering. They also have a tendency to recur. A few days la ter, S ister F au s tin a notes: "Last night I zvas in such pain that I thought it zvas the end. cIhe doctors could not diagnose zvhat the sickness zvas. I f e l t as i f my entrails had heen tom to shreds, hut after a fe zv hours o f such sufferings I am a ll right.' (Diary, Notebook II, para . 999). This ex trac t from the Diary is still more astonishing. For unknown reasons the p ic ture of the disease be­ comes more complicated and obscure. The doctors are a t a loss to explain these incomprehensible symptoms. The explanation for th is new morbid phenomenon is given by S ister F au s tin a in la te r pages of h e r diary. The question of medical competence is in suspension, for sp iritual factors are th e explanation: these suffer­ ings have a mystical origin. Len t had arrived , and 276