Sister Faustina Kowalska: Her LIfe and MIssion

world may know tha t Thou has t sent me... I have made known to them Thy Name, and I will make I t known, tha t the love w ith which Thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them ” (John 17, v. 23, v. 26).This is the real meaning of apostolate, to live with Christ so as to make His Name known. When th is t ru th seems to be van ish ing or forgotten, Christ rem inds us of i t again through His intervention in the souls of those of the faithfu l who live united with Him in a special way. Such interventions have been various. One of them is the message of Divine Mercy which S ister Faus tina , a Polish nun, passes on to the world of today. This book gives us a picture of S is ter Fau s tina , an account of h e r life, he r sp iritua l formation and her life in Christ. In learn ing about h e r life, we shall more fully understand the message, "God, Who is rich in mercy, out o f the great love w ith which He loved us...' (Epistle to the Ephesians, 2, v.4). She he rse lf in her own life experienced pa rticu la r Divine Mercy and was an authentic apostle of the Mercy. She passed on to the world what she had herse lf known. Ch ris t made use ol her so th a t she could teach us and rem ind us of the g rea tness of Divine Merciful Love. This rem inder is today most contemporary and greatly necessary. In his Encyclical on Divine Mercy, the Holy Father Pope John Paul II w rites, "The modern intellect, perhaps more so than the m ind o f past generations, appears to oppose a God o f mercy, and also aspires tc pu sh the very idea o f mercy to the periphery o f life ana cut it o f f from the hum an heart. The very word ana concept o f "mercy" seems to hinder man, who, through the previously unknown development o f science ana technology has, more than a t any time in the past, become a ruler: he has made the earth subject to him.' This "rule over the earth", often understood in a partial and superficial way, seems n o t to have left room foi mercy. 6