Sister Faustina Kowalska: Her LIfe and MIssion

in Laval unde r the eye of the Foundress. The f irs t House of the Congregation was erected in W arsaw a t Zytnia S tree t, nos.3/9, where i t still is, a t the reques t of Archbishop Szcz^sny Feliriski. I t was opened on 1st November 1862, not long before th e J a n u a ry In su rrec ­ tion of 1863, as a re su l t of which the archbishop was exiled to Russia. The Congregation th u s had a very difficult s ta rt . They were poor and often hungry , bu t th is did not dim inish the sacrificial life of the nuns. T he ir needs were great. Vocations were numerous, so t h a t in 1868 they were able to open ano th e r house, in Cracow. Local difficulties of th e Cracow house caused th e sisters to have to move several times, and i t was only in 1890 th a t they found a pe rm anen t home in Lgiewniki, founded by Prince Lubomirski. The two Houses, in W arsaw and Cracow, formed the axis of the Congregation. The superiors of th e Congregation and th e formation of the novices were estab lished the re , the formation consisting of the postulancy and novitiate before th e annua l vows, and th e so-called probation before final profession. The tu rn of the century found th e Congregation well established. I t exhibited immense and dynamic vitality, opening house a fte r house. Up to 1939 i t had houses in Derdy, Plock, Czestochowa, Vilnius, Walendow, Radom, Kalisz, a second house in W arsaw in the Grochow d istric t, in Kiekrz n e a r Poznan, and in Rabka. The Congregation of S isters of Our Lady of Mercy b rough t in from France to Poland was for sixty years a vicariate of th e French m o ther house. Bu t the expansive activity of the Polish b ranch of th e Congrega­ tion, while suffering impeded contact with the Mother House in Laval, and working in qu ite different social conditions and for o ther social needs, led to the Polish Houses becoming independent. A s itua tion arose sim ilar to th a t when th e Congregation was founded in France and i t was necessary to sepa ra te th e House a t Laval from the House a t Bordeaux. Here, too, th e re were 397