Sister Faustina Kowalska: Her LIfe and MIssion

"I found in her diary a novena to the Divine Mercy, which I very much liked. When I asked her where she had it from, she told me tha t Jesus H im se l f had dictated to her th is novena. Prior to this, Jesus had taugh t her a chaplet to the Divine Mercy, and other prayers, which I decided to publish ." (Archives of S.F., Recollections). F a the r Sopocko published the chaplet and novena in a verbatim version, and a series of invocations in the d iary was collected by him in th e form of a litany of the Divine Mercy. All these prayers were collected in a small booklet called "Chrystus Krol Milosierdzia" (Christ the King of Mercy) published th a t yea r in Cracow with the help of Mo ther Irene Krzyzanowska, simultaneously with a series of large and small pictures of the Merciful Jesu s . Two months a fte r meeting F a th e r Sopocko, i t was with joyful emotions th a t S is te r Faus­ t in a looked a t samples of th is publication. She well understood the importance of th e event, and, in the f irs t impulse of g ra titude , above all to Je su s i t was she tu rn ed h e r thoughts. She writes: "I entered into an intimate conversation zvith the Lord, thanking Him f o r having condescended to grant me the grace o f seeing hozv the veneration o f 'His unfathomable mercy is spreading (Diary, Notebook IV, para. 1300). "Lis I zvas ghincing through it, Jesus gave me to knozv interiorCy: "Already there are many souls zvho have been drazvn to M y Cove by this image. M y mercy acts in souls through this zvork." (Diary, Notebook V, para. 1379). Indeed, these small publications from Cracow began an enormous series of pictures, p rayers and theological 299