The Marian Spirituality of Saint Faustina Kowalska

In the atmosphere of anti-Marian bias that prevailed in the Church during the latter half of the twentieth century, and lingers in many parts of the Church today, it is difficult to appreciate the extent to which the Catholic milieu of the earlier half of the twentieth century was imbued with a deep-seated Marian spirituality. Some would have us believe that this Marian spirituality was superficial at best—a sort of emotional “popular piety” of the (under-educated) masses—or heretical at worst. Yet, a look at the saints of this period belies both of these accusations.

A powerful case in point is St. Maria Faustina of the Most Blessed Sacrament, better known simply as St. Faustina. Best known for her vision of Our Lord that led to the famous image of Divine Mercy, with the inscription “Jesus, I Trust in You,” St. Faustina had, in fact, repeated visions of Our Lord, as well as of His Blessed Mother, all of which are recorded in her Diary.1

Remarkably, among the numerous apparitions Our Lady granted to St. Faustina, at least three of which were of the nature of images that could easily inspire magnificent artwork and Marian titles and devotions similar to those inspired by other famous Marian apparitions, it is difficult or impossible to find depictions of these apparitions of Our Lady. Moreover, St. Faustina’s Marian apparitions and Marian spirituality are often downplayed or ignored entirely in popular literature about the Saint,2 which tend to emphasize only her famous Divine Mercy image and devotion. Why? Is it possible that Satan is less frightened of Jesus’ Mercy than of the Woman who is destined to crush his head? Is not Jesus more powerful than Mary, who is only a creature, after all? Indeed. But it is said that Satan deceives with ninety percent truth and ten percent lie. Satan is willing to affirm that Jesus is powerful—we have records of him and his devils doing so on several occasions in the New Testament—so long as he can turn our eyes away from the Woman to whom the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit have willed to entrust the entire order of Divine Mercy.3 In marked contrast to this tactic of Satan, there is no ambiguity in the revelations that Jesus Himself gave to St. Faustina regarding the critical role of His Blessed Mother in His plan of Divine Mercy, because, as Jesus told St. Faustina, “My love deceives no one.”4

Helena Kowalska

St. Maria Faustina of the Blessed Sacrament was born Helena Kowalska on August 25, 1905, the daughter of Stanislaus Kowalski and Marianna (Babel) Kowalska, in the Polish village of Glogowiec. She was the third of ten children. Every morning, Stanislaus would pray the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, called the “Godzinki,” and Helenka (as she was called) would imitate him. When she was five years old, Helenka told her mother about her dreams in which she walked hand-in-hand with the Blessed Virgin through lovely gardens.5 “From the age of seven,” St. Faustina tells us, “I experienced the definite call of God, the grace of a vocation to the religious life.”6 At the age of ten, she went from door to door in her village, dressed in rags, begging for food for the poor. Having learned to read at home, Helena attended school for only three years, between the ages of twelve and fourteen. At the age of fifteen, Helena began to work as a maid and a nanny, where she had a reputation for telling wonderful stories of the saints from memory, which her father had read aloud to her when she was a child.7

When Helena told her parents of her intention to enter a convent—first at the age of sixteen, and again at the age of eighteen—they refused to let her go, because they were too fond of her. St. Faustina relates:

After this refusal, I turned myself over to the vain things of life, paying no attention to the call of grace, although my soul found no satisfaction in any of these things. The incessant call of grace caused me much anguish; I tried, however, to stifle it with amusements. Interiorly, I shunned God, turning with all my heart to creatures. However, God’s grace won out in my soul.8

This state of affairs was not to last much longer, however. In 1924, when Helena was at a dance with her sister, she suddenly saw a vision of the wounded and suffering Jesus at her side, stripped of His clothing. He said, “How long shall I put up with you and how long will you keep putting Me off?”9 Helena slipped away from the dance unnoticed, and ran to the Cathedral of St. Stanislaus Kostka, where she prostrated herself before the tabernacle. There she heard these words: “Go at once to Warsaw; you will enter a convent there.”10 Helena responded by leaving that very night on a train for Warsaw, without saying goodbye to her parents, with only the clothes she was wearing, and with no other belongings. When she arrived in Warsaw, Helena became frightened, and she prayed to her Blessed Mother, “Mary, lead me, guide me.”11 Immediately, she heard the Blessed Virgin tell her where to go to find safe lodgings for the night.

After knocking on convent doors in Warsaw for nearly a year, Helena was finally accepted as a postulant on August 1, 1925, at the convent of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy—also called the Magdalenes—whose charism was the care of wayward girls, under the patronage of the Mother of Mercy. There, as a “coadjutor” sister, she would do household chores, such as cooking and cleaning, to support the “directress” sisters, who attended to the educational and spiritual needs of the girls in their care.12 After three weeks, Helena wanted to leave to find a convent that would allow her more time for prayer. Jesus intervened:

I came to my cell. The sisters were already in bed—the lights were out. I entered the cell full of anguish and discontent; I did not know what to do with myself. I threw myself headlong on the ground and began to pray fervently that I might come to know the will of God… After a while a brightness filled my cell, and on the curtain I saw the very sorrowful Face of Jesus. There were open wounds on His Face, and large tears were falling on my bedspread. Not knowing what all this meant, I asked Jesus, “Jesus, who has hurt You so?” And Jesus said to me, It is you who will cause Me this pain if you leave this convent. It is to this place that I called you and nowhere else; and I have prepared many graces for you. I begged pardon of Jesus and immediately changed my decision.13

On April 30, 1926, having completed her postulancy, Helena began her novitiate in Krakow. There she took the habit and received her new name: Sr. Maria Faustina. In 1927, approaching the end of the first year of her novitiate, St. Faustina experienced a terrible spiritual darkness. In her own words:

Toward the end of the first year of my novitiate, darkness began to cast its shadow over my soul. I felt no consolation in prayer; I had to make a great effort to meditate; fear began to sweep over me. Going deeper into myself, I could find nothing but great misery… God was working very strangely in my soul. I did not understand anything at all of what my confessor was telling me. The simple truths of the faith became incomprehensible to me. My soul was in anguish, unable to find comfort anywhere. At a certain point, there came to me the very powerful impression that I am rejected by God. This terrible thought pierced my soul right through; in the midst of the suffering my soul began to experience the agony of death. I wanted to die but could not. The thought came to me: of what use is it to strive for virtues; why mortify oneself when all this is disagreeable to God?14

In this state of utter despair, it was not Jesus who came to St. Faustina’s aid, as she relates in her Diary:

One day, just as I had awakened, when I was putting myself in the presence of God, I was suddenly overwhelmed by despair. Complete darkness in the soul. I fought as best I could till noon. In the afternoon, truly deadly fears began to seize me; my physical strength began to leave me. I went quickly to my cell, fell on my knees before the Crucifix and began to cry out for mercy. But Jesus did not hear my cries. I felt my physical strength leave me completely. I fell to the ground, despair flooding my whole soul. I suffered terrible tortures in no way different from the torments of hell… During the night, the Mother of God visited me, holding the Infant Jesus in Her arms. My soul was filled with joy, and I said, “Mary, my Mother, do You know how terribly I suffer?” And the Mother of God answered me, I know how much you suffer, but do not be afraid. I share with you your suffering, and I shall always do so. She smiled warmly and disappeared.15

After this visit from Our Lady, instantly “strength and a great courage sprang up anew”16 in St. Faustina’s soul. However, this reprieve was only to be temporary. Her torments returned the following day. These torments persisted throughout St. Faustina’s novitiate, and they returned again shortly before her death ten years later. Nevertheless, St. Faustina’s visit from the Mother of God provides a beautiful example of Our Lady’s unique power, illustrated again in another vision witnessed by St. Faustina:

[One night,] I saw my Guardian Angel, who ordered me to follow him. In a moment I was in a misty place full of fire in which there was a great crowd of suffering souls. They were praying fervently, but to no avail, for themselves; only we can come to their aid. The flames which were burning them did not touch me at all. My Guardian Angel did not leave me for an instant. I asked these souls what their greatest suffering was. They answered me in one voice that their greatest torment was longing for God. I saw Our Lady visiting the souls in Purgatory. The souls call her “The Star of the Sea.” She brings them refreshment.17

In these two examples, we observe that Mary does not have the power to free souls from Purgatory. Nor does she have the power to remove the sufferings that God has willed to visit upon the Church Militant (Satan would agree: ninety percent truth). However, Mary does have the simple power to provide us with vital refreshment, precisely when that refreshment is needed (Satan would disagree: ten percent lie). If we poor weak creatures believe that we can dispense with the necessary refreshment that Mary provides to sustain us at the most critical moments of our spiritual life, then we are not only fools, but proud fools—fit company for Satan.

Mediatrix of All Graces

Shortly after St. Faustina’s trial of spiritual darkness was over, and after she had made her first profession of temporary vows, Jesus Himself told St. Faustina how He wished her to pray—by uniting her heart with the Heart of His Mother:

Another time, I heard these words, Go to the Superior and ask her to allow you to make a daily hour of adoration for nine days. During this adoration try to unite yourself in prayer with My Mother. Pray with all your heart in union with Mary, and try also during this time to make the Way of the Cross.18

It was during this novena that St. Faustina received her first major apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary in her Heavenly Glory:

On the seventh day of the novena I saw, between heaven and earth, the Mother of God, clothed in a bright robe. She was praying with her hands folded on her bosom, her eyes fixed on Heaven. From Her Heart issued forth fiery rays, some of which were turned toward Heaven while others were covering our country.19

There has, perhaps, never been a more explicit and perfectly illustrative image than the one granted to St. Faustina of the Blessed Virgin Mary as the Mediatrix of All Graces, suspended literally between heaven and earth—in perfect imitation of her Divine Son20—with graces like fiery rays passing up and down from Heaven to Earth like the angels ascending and descending Jacob’s Ladder,21 channeled through her Immaculate Heart.

Moreover, as the devoted and concerned Mother she is, the Mediatrix of all Graces not only obtains special graces for each one of us, she also teaches her children how to use and develop the graces she obtains for them. As St. Faustina relates in her Diary: “Mary is my Instructress, who is ever teaching me how to live for God. My spirit brightens up in your gentleness and your humility, O Mary.”22 On the occasion related below, the Blessed Virgin obtains a special grace for St. Faustina; then she teaches her daughter how to prepare herself for a deeper interior life with Jesus:

The Mother of God has taught me how to prepare for the Feast of Christmas. I saw Her today, without the Infant Jesus. She said to me: My daughter, strive after silence and humility, so that Jesus, who dwells in your heart continuously, may be able to rest. Adore Him in your heart; do not go out from your inmost being. My daughter, I shall obtain for you the grace of an interior life which will be such that, without ever leaving that interior life, you will be able to carry out all your external duties with even greater care. Dwell with Him continuously in your own heart. He will be your strength. Communicate with creatures only in so far as is necessary and is required by your duties. You are a dwelling place pleasing to the living God; in you He dwells continuously with love and delight. And the living presence of God, which you experience in a more vivid and distinct way, will confirm you, my daughter, in the things I have told you. Try to act in this way until Christmas Day, and then He Himself will make known to you in what way you will be communing and uniting yourself to Him.23

Mary’s Maternal Mediation is both universal and unique to each of her children. She inspires us to imitate her virtues with her own irresistible charm and attraction, as she did on the following occasion related by St. Faustina:

The Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Before Holy Communion I saw the Blessed Mother inconceivably beautiful. Smiling at me she said to me, My daughter, at God’s command I am to be, in a special and exclusive way, your Mother; but I desire that you, too, in a special way, be My child. I desire, my dearly beloved daughter, that you practice the three virtues that are dearest to me—and most pleasing to God. The first is humility, humility, and once again humility; the second virtue, purity; the third virtue, love of God. As My daughter, you must especially radiate with these virtues. When the conversation ended, she pressed me to her Heart and disappeared. When I regained the use of my senses, my heart became so wonderfully attracted to these virtues; and I practice them faithfully. They are as though engraved in my heart.24

St. Faustina also teaches us that Mary’s Mediation does not encroach on the One Mediation of Christ.25 Nor does Our Lady’s mercy replace that of Our Lord. Indeed, Mary is the first to acknowledge God’s mercy to her, and she places all her trust in Him, as St. Faustina poetically expresses:

The Blessed Virgin, that Snow-White Lily,
Is the first to praise the omnipotence of Your mercy.
Her pure heart opens with love for the coming of the Word;
She believes the words of God’s messenger and is confirmed in trust…

To give worthy praise to the Lord’s mercy,
We unite ourselves with Your Immaculate Mother,
For then our hymn will be more pleasing to You,
Because she is chosen from among men and angels.

Through her, as through a pure crystal,
Your mercy was passed on to us.
Through her, man became pleasing to God;
Through her, streams of grace flowed down upon us.26

Coredemptrix

On one occasion, St. Faustina relates the following vision of the Sorrowful and Immaculate Virgin:

In the evening, I saw the Mother of God, with Her breast bared and pierced with a sword. She was shedding bitter tears and shielding us against God’s terrible punishment. God wants to inflict terrible punishment on us, but He cannot because the Mother of God is shielding us. Horrible fear seized my soul. I kept praying incessantly for Poland, for my dear Poland, which is so lacking in gratitude for the Mother of God. If it were not for the Mother of God, all our efforts would be of little use.27

There is almost nothing so moving in popular fiction (or film) as a hero “taking the bullet” meant for another. In this vision, it is not a hero, but a heroine, and she not only takes the sword meant for each one of us, she even bares her breast to receive it—the very breast that should be receiving caresses from the Infant Jesus. This vision of the Mother of God, and Our Mother, placing herself “in the line of fire” for us, is moving to the point of being disturbing. Yet, it is real. This is the reality of Mary’s co-suffering with Jesus, for which she is rightly given the titles Queen of Martyrs and Coredemptrix.28 Our Lady herself instructed St. Faustina in the practice of abandonment, when confronted with the reality of her own co-suffering with Jesus:

Know, My daughter, that although I was raised to the dignity of Mother of God, seven swords of pain pierced my Heart. Don’t do anything to defend yourself; bear everything with humility; God himself will defend you.29

This abandonment to co-suffering with Jesus was particularly important for St. Faustina, who, in addition to recurring attacks of spiritual darkness, experienced racking physical pain due to tuberculosis, which first attacked her lungs and later her gastrointestinal tract, and eventually led to her death at the young age of thirty-three years—the same age as Our Lord. As St. Faustina said of herself during the last year of her sojourn here on earth:

Although it is very unpleasant for nature to constantly smell one’s own corpse, yet it is not so terrible when the soul is filled with God’s light, because in it faith, hope, love and contrition are awakened. Daily I make great efforts to take part in community life, thereby gaining graces for souls’ salvation, shielding them by my sacrifice from the fire of hell. For the salvation of even a single soul is worth the sacrifice of a lifetime and the bearing of the greatest sacrifices and torments, seeing how great the glory it gives God.30

In her suffering, St. Faustina united herself completely to Christ Crucified, sustaining herself at all times with His Body and Blood in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist:

When night fell, the physical sufferings increased and were joined by moral sufferings. Night and suffering. The solemn silence of the night made it possible for me to suffer freely. My body was stretched on the wood of the cross. I writhed in terrible pain until eleven o’clock. I went in spirit to the Tabernacle and uncovered the ciborium, leaning my head on the rim of the cup, and all my tears flowed silently toward the Heart of Him who alone understands what pain and suffering is. And I experienced the sweetness of this suffering, and my soul came to desire this sweet agony, which I would not have exchanged for all the world’s treasures.31

On this as on all occasions, the Eucharistic Jesus was the source of St. Faustina’s spiritual strength:

O Sacred Host, fountain of divine sweetness,
You give strength to my soul;
O You are the Omnipotent One, who took flesh of the Virgin,
You come to my heart, in secret,
Beyond reach of the groping senses.32

For St. Maria Faustina of the Most Blessed Sacrament, Marian and Eucharistic devotion were inseparable. This is hardly surprising, since Jesus took His Body and Blood from Mary’s own Immaculate Heart; and He made her Virginal womb the first tabernacle on earth, as the following poem beautifully illustrates:

O Mary, Immaculate Virgin,
Pure crystal for my heart,
You are my strength, O secure anchor,
You are a shield and protection for a weak heart.

O Mary, you are pure and unparalleled,
Virgin and Mother at one and the same time;
You’re beautiful as the sun, by nothing defiled.
Nothing is worthy of comparison to the image of your soul.

Your beauty [so] enthralled the Thrice-Holy One’s eye,
That He came down from heaven, forsaking th’eternal See’s throne,
And assumed from your Heart Body and Blood,
Hiding for nine months in the Virgin’s Heart.

O Mother, Virgin, this will no one comprehend,
That the infinite God is becoming a man;
It’s only love’s and His inscrutable mercy’s purpose.
Through You, Mother—it’s given us to live with Him for ever.

O Mary, Virgin Mother and Heaven’s Gate,
Through you salvation came to us;
Every grace to us streams forth through your hands,
And faithful imitation of you only will sanctify me.

O Mother, Virgin—most beautiful Lily.
Your Heart was for Jesus the first tabernacle on earth,
And that, because your humility was the deepest,
Wherefore you were raised above Angel choirs and saints.

O Mary, my sweet Mother,
To you I turn over my soul, my body and my poor heart.
Be the safeguard of my life,
Especially at death’s hour, in the final fight.33

Advocate

On another occasion, St. Faustina relates the following vision of the Blessed Mother of God—Theotokos:

In the midst of a great brilliance, I saw the Mother of God clothed in a white gown, girt about with a golden cincture; and there were tiny stars, also of gold, over the whole garment, and chevron-shaped sleeves lined with gold. Her cloak was sky-blue, lightly thrown over the shoulders. A transparent veil was delicately drawn over her head, while her flowing hair was set off beautifully by a golden crown which terminated in little crosses. On her left arm she held the Child Jesus. A Blessed Mother of this type I had not yet seen. She looked at me kindly and said: I am the Mother of God of Priests. At that, She lowered Jesus from Her arm to the ground, raised Her right hand heavenward and said: O God, bless Poland, bless priests. Then She addressed me once again: Tell the priests what you have seen.34

Mary is the Advocate par excellence35 for all of us, poor banished children of Eve, but in a special way she intercedes for Priests, who are her most dearly beloved sons. Mary’s concern for her priest sons is simply an extension of her concern for her Divine Son, in whose Persona every priest acts. The Mother of God expressed the concern she feels for her Divine Son to St. Faustina on Christmas Eve, 1937, which was St. Faustina’s last Christmas Eve on earth:

After Holy Communion, the Mother of God gave me to experience the anxious concern she had in her Heart because of the Son of God. But this anxiety was permeated with such fragrance of abandonment to the will of God that I should call it rather a delight than an anxiety. I understood how my soul ought to accept the will of God in all things. It is a pity I cannot write this the way I experienced it. My soul was plunged in deep recollection all day long.36

On an earlier occasion, while St. Faustina was praying a novena consisting of the prayer, “Hail, Holy Queen,” recited nine times for the intentions of her confessor, she relates:

Toward the end of the novena I saw the Mother of God with the Infant Jesus in her arms, and I also saw my confessor kneeling at her feet and talking with her. I did not understand what he was saying to her, because I was busy talking with the Infant Jesus, who came down from His Mother’s arms and approached me. I could not stop wondering at His beauty. I heard a few of the words that the Mother of God spoke to him [i.e., my confessor], but not everything. The words were: I am not only the Queen of Heaven, but also the Mother of Mercy and your Mother. And at that moment she stretched out her right hand, in which she was clasping her mantle, and she covered the priest with it. At that moment, the vision vanished.37

Throughout her Diary, St. Faustina repeatedly refers to Mary’s intercession for mankind, sometimes in an almost “off-hand” manner, as when she relates:

I saw the Lord Jesus, like a king in great majesty, looking down upon our earth with great severity; but because of His Mother’s intercession He prolonged the time of His mercy.38

Moreover, the Blessed Virgin depends on the collaboration of her children to join in her advocacy for the human race:

In the evening, when I was praying, the Mother of God told me, Your lives must be like Mine: quiet and hidden, in unceasing union with God, pleading for humanity and preparing the world for the second coming of God.39

If we wish to give effectual aid to those who are suffering, oppressed, or abandoned in this world, then we must say with St. Faustina:

O sweet Mother of God,
I model my life on You;
You are for me the bright dawn;
In You I lose myself, enraptured.

O Mother, Immaculate Virgin,
In You the divine ray is reflected,
Midst storms, ‘tis You who teach me to love the Lord,
O my shield and defense from the foe.40

Total Consecration

Given the undeniably maximal Marian devotion of our Saint—she wrote in her Diary that “nothing is too much when it comes to honoring the Immaculate Virgin”41—it is hardly surprising that St. Faustina explicitly consecrated herself to the Blessed Virgin Mary. We are fortunate enough to have a record of her prayer of total consecration:

O Mary, my Mother and my Lady, I offer you my soul, my body, my life and my death, all that will follow it. I place everything in your hands. O my Mother, cover my soul with your virginal mantle and grant me the grace of purity of heart, soul and body. Defend me with your power against all enemies, and especially against those who hide their malice behind the mask of virtue. O lovely lily! You are for me a mirror, O my Mother!42

The image of Mary as a “mirror”, in which Jesus is reflected in the person of Mary, and Mary is reflected in the Person of Jesus, and in which St. Faustina can reflect Mary in herself, thereby reflecting Jesus in herself and herself in Jesus, is the very essence of consecration to Jesus through Mary.43 Moreover, it is the essence of St. Faustina’s Marian spirituality, which—far from being superficial piety—was an indispensible element of her devotion to the God-Man Jesus Christ. Indeed, Mary is the only perfect key that Jesus will allow to unlock the floodgates of His Divine Mercy for all mankind.

Shortly before her death, St. Faustina’s union with the Immaculate Virgin was so complete, and the nuptial bond between her soul and the soul of Jesus effected by this union with the Blessed Mother was so confident,44 that she was able to write the following poem for herself, which could equally (and must ultimately) be applied to the Virgin of Virgins, the perfect image of womanhood—motherhood and virginity—contemplated in the Mind of God before the creation of the world,45 as the complement to the perfect image of manhood, Jesus Christ:

O virgin, lovely flower,
You will not remain much longer in this world.
Oh, how beautiful your loveliness,
My pure bride!

No numbers can count you.
How dear is your virginal flower!
Your brightness is in no way dimmed;
It is brave, strong, invincible.

The very blaze of the noon-day sun
Dims, and darkens in the presence of a virgin heart.
I see nothing greater than virginity.
It is a flower taken from the Divine Heart.

O gentle virgin, fragrant rose,
Although there are many crosses on earth,
No eye has seen, nor has it entered into the mind of man
What awaits a virgin in heaven.

O virgin, snow-white lily,
You live wholly for Jesus alone
And in the pure chalice of your heart
Is a pleasing dwelling place for God Himself.

O virgin, no one will sing your hymn.
In your song lies hidden the love of God.
Even the Angels do not comprehend
What the virgins sing to God.

O virgin, your flower of paradise
Eclipses all the splendors of this world.
And although the world cannot comprehend you,
It bows humbly before you.

Although the virgin’s path is strewn with thorns,
And her life bristles with many a cross,
Who is as brave as she?
Nothing will break her; she is invincible.

O virgin, earthly angel,
Your greatness is renowned throughout the Church.
You stand guard before the tabernacle
And, like a Seraph, become all love.46