Sister Faustina Kowalska: Her LIfe and MIssion

she visited J a sn a Gora (the "Mountain of Light"), in Czestochowa. To ge t the re , she had to go out of her way, because Czestochowa does n o t lie on the railway link between Cracow and Vilnius. S ister F au s tin a had h e r own serious reasons for w ishing to pray a t th e feet of Our Lady of Czestochowa. She was frightened. She was compelled to leave the place where h e r sp iritual life had , for the f irs t time, begun to take on equi­ librium and order, and go once more into the unknown. She was leaving behind a sp iritua l director, Fa the r Andrasz, who so clearly understood h e r soul, and the house, of all the convents of h e r Congregation, which she perhaps loved the most. Alone again, she would have to struggle with th e demands of Jesu s , and find a confessor to whom she could e n t ru s t th e difficult problems of h e r in terior life. She spen t six hours in p raye r before the image of Our Lady in the shrine a t Czestochowa. In h e r diary she noted: 'Hhe Mother o f Qod told me many things. I entrusted my perpetual vows to Mer. I f e l t that I was Oder child and that She was my Mother. She d id not refuse any o f my requests". (Diary,Notebook I, para. 260). More than a yea r la ter, in Vilnius, when a p a r ticu la r­ ly g rea t number of difficulties had piled up in h e r life - the m is tru s t of F a th e r Sopocko, th e ha rdsh ip and burdensome n a tu re of h e r work, the weight of the mission en tru s ted to h e r by J e su s now pressing ha rd upon her, together with a m ass of painful experiences and hum ilia tions from all sides - S ister F au s tina summoned the Mother of God to h e r aid, counting upon her unders tand ing over suffering. 'Mother o f Qod, ‘you r sou l was plunged into a sea o f bitterness; looli upon yo u r child and teach her to suffer 349