Sister Faustina Kowalska: Her LIfe and MIssion

she would become a pilgrim like those of whom her fa the r had read to her, and th a t she would consecrate he rse lf to prayer. She often rose to pray in the middle of the night. When h e r m o ther told h e r to go back to bed, she said th a t an angel h ad awoken h e r and told h e r to pray. Her then m en ta l s ta te can be described as the slow creation of a sp iritua l climate in which he r soul was becoming hab itu a ted to live. How she was to plan h e r fu tu re to be able to give h e rse lf to God was no t ye t clear, a t lea s t on the exterior. In Aleksandrow h e r vocation crystallised: she would en ter a convent. Probably an event, which h e r sister Josephine recalls, had a decisive influence. One day, Helenka began shouting th a t there was a fire in the courtyard. The a larm caused some confusion, because bread was being p u t into the bake-ovens a t th a t moment. I t was a false alarm . Bu t th e girl was so shaken th a t she fainted, and h e r employers called the doctor. At th a t time i t was not th e common practice to call a doctor for a trifle, especially not for a home visit. Helenka’s condition m u s t have seemed serious. Her employers called it "insanity". Such a strong psychic shock in an equable and balanced girl leads us to suppose th a t something unusua l mu s t have occurred. Josephine was sen t by th e ir anxious p a ren ts to Aleksandrow to see h e r sister, and when she asked Helenka w ha t had happened, the la t te r answered briefly and re luc tan tly th a t she had seen a "light". But she immediately added: "Tell M umm y not to worry. I am not crazy, but I shan ’t say anything more about it to them. I shall not be staying here long." In some way the "light" she had seen was linked with Helenka’s decision to leave h e r post, and th is in tu rn was connected with h e r inten tion of en tering a convent. T h a t is all we know about what happened. The "light" rem a ins a mystery. Only a certain sim ilarity with something th a t occurred a year la te r enables u s to suppose th a t Helenka did not reveal 34