Faustina Canonized: Divine Mercy Sunday Begins

Pope John Paul II canonized the Polish nun Faustina Kowalska before 200,000 pilgrims in St. Peter's Square, simultaneously establishing the first worldwide celebration of Divine Mercy Sunday on the Catholic liturgical calendar. Kowalska's mystical diary describing visions of Christ's mercy had been banned by the Vatican for twenty years before her cause was reopened. Her canonization reflected John Paul II's personal devotion to the Divine Mercy message that had originated in his native Poland. Faustina Kowalska was born Helena Kowalska in 1905 in the village of Glogowiec, Poland, the third of ten children in a poor farming family. She entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in Warsaw at age twenty and served as a cook, gardener, and porter at various convents. Her diary, written between 1934 and 1938 at the direction of her confessor, recorded mystical experiences in which Christ appeared to her and dictated prayers and devotional practices centered on divine mercy. The diary was published in Polish after her death in 1938, but a flawed Italian translation led the Vatican's Holy Office to ban the text in 1959, ordering that all copies be withdrawn from circulation and that the devotion not be promoted. The ban was lifted in 1978, partly through the efforts of Karol Wojtyla, then Archbishop of Krakow, who had investigated Kowalska's writings and championed her cause. When Wojtyla became Pope John Paul II, he personally advanced her canonization process, beatifying her in 1993 and canonizing her on April 30, 2000. The establishment of Divine Mercy Sunday, fixed to the second Sunday of Easter, was one of John Paul II's most personal liturgical decisions. He himself died on the vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday in 2005.