Sister Faustina Kowalska: Her LIfe and MIssion

work, a t the gate, and she did th is work for six months, un til once more she had to en te r hospital. But even such work was beyond the streng th of the sick woman. The progress of h e r disease was such th a t fulfilling the daily religious duties and the work required S ister F au s tin a to make a constan t heroic effort of will. In h e r Diary, in various places she mentions how much i t cost h e r to have constantly to overcome h e r lack of streng th and to fight aga in s t pain: 7 must be on my guard, especially today, because I am becoming over-sensitive to everything. ‘Things I zvould not pay any attention to zvhen I am healthy bother me today. “ (Diary, Notebook II, para. 783). 7 live from one hour to the ne%t and am not able to g e t along in any other zvay. I zvant to make the best possible use o f the present moment, fa ith fu lly accom­ plishing everything that it gives me. In a l l things, I depend on Qod zvith unzvavering trust. " (Diary, Notebook V, para. 1400). But when, two weeks a fte r she had taken up work a t the gate, he r b ro the r S tan ley arrived to ask he r advice as to w he ther he should en te r a religious order and, if so, which one, S is te r F au s t in a was so self-con­ trolled, cheerful and smiling th a t , although he noticed how poorly she looked, she was able to reassu re him th a t i t was nothing serious, and th a t she had easy work th a t did not make h e r tired. He went away not suspecting th a t she had tuberculosis. B u t the reality was very different. The devastating process of the disease continued inexorably, and it had all the righ t conditions to develop because those around h e r were, as before, often igno ran t of the t ru th , and the 283