Sister Faustina Kowalska: Her LIfe and MIssion

entrustedAo them prayers, mortifications and work, in other words everything, even efforts made for their personal sanctity, without which it would be impos­ sible for them to work effectively for the improvement o f others." We should here add th a t the Congregation was dedicated, as its name indicates, to Our Lady, a dedication which offered a certa in gua ran tee th a t Christ’s Mercy, with Her help, would be properly in terpre ted , and the ir life appropriately directed. The organization of th e community was as follows: it wad divided into two choirs. The f i rs t choir was formed of educator-directresses, whose work was with the wards; the second choir was formed of the sisters coadjutrices who did the household ta sk s in th e kitchen, the bakery, garden etc. This formal division should not, however, confuse us: all the s is te rs had a p a r t to play in the apostolic work with the girls, through prayer, penance and mortification, and because the girls in helping with the house-work and garden ing alongside the coadjutrix s isters were then unde r the au tho rity of the coadjutrices. In Poland the re were four congregations working with "fallen" girls, b u t only the S isters of Our Lady of Mercy were entirely devoting th e ir labour to th is form of activity. Because the problem of "fallen" girls was no t so widespread in Poland as in France, th e ir institu tions quickly took the form, no t of pen iten tia l b u t rehab ilita ­ tive and educational establishments. Increasingly there came to them girls who were difficult to b ring up, disturbed and requ iring special efforts, bu t not "fallen" in the usual meaning of the term . The Congregation was b rough t to Poland from France by Mother Teresa Potocka and by th e mother and daugh ter Kunegunda and Rose Klobukowska in the year 1862. They had been suitably prepared , for in the previous year they had spen t an eight-month novitiate 396