Oct 5 – Memorial for St. Faustina Kowalska, Virgin, religious, Christian Mystic
Maria Faustyna Kowalska (born Helena Kowalska; 25 August 1905 – 5 October 1938), also known as Saint Maria Faustyna Kowalska of the Blessed Sacrament and popularly spelled Faustina, was a Polish Roman Catholic nun and mystic. Her apparitions of Jesus Christ inspired the Roman Catholic devotion to the Divine Mercy and earned her the title of “Secretary of Divine Mercy”.
Throughout her life, Kowalska reported having visions of Jesus and conversations with him, which she noted in her diary, later published as The Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul. Her biography, submitted to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, quoted some of the conversations with Jesus regarding the Divine Mercy devotion.
At the age of 20 years, she joined a convent in Warsaw. She was later transferred to Płock and then to Vilnius, where she met Father Michał Sopoćko, who was to be her confessor and spiritual director, and who supported her devotion to the Divine Mercy. With this priest’s help, Kowalska commissioned an artist to paint the first Divine Mercy image, based on her vision of Jesus. Father Sopoćko celebrated Mass in the presence of this painting on Low Sunday, also known as the Second Sunday of Easter or (as established by Pope John Paul II), Divine Mercy Sunday.
The Catholic Church canonized Kowalska as a saint on 30 April 2000. The mystic is classified in the liturgy as a virgin and is venerated within the church as the ‘Apostle of Divine Mercy’. Her tomb is in Divine Sanctuary, Kraków-Łagiewniki, where she spent the end of her life and met confessor Józef Andrasz, who also supported the message of mercy.
- Wikipedia
Eph 3:14-19
Mt 11:25-30
…may he give you the power through his Spirit for your hidden self to grow strong...
Today, I celebrate a milestone birthday. I am now, officially, in the evening of my life.
When this reflection is published, I would have just returned from spending 20 glorious days travelling around Northern and Northwestern Spain. What a wonderful gift! I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to travel, to see new places, to eat good food, and simply to enjoy life with my loved ones.
Today, I also officially qualify to be called a ‘senior citizen’ in Singapore. Even saying that sounds altogether weird to me. Since when did I become ‘senior’? When did I become ‘old’? In my mind, I still feel no more than 45!
And yet, reality has a way of reminding us. A couple of weeks ago, I noticed my knees hurting as I moved and exercised. That made me think: getting older is real; or at least, our bodies eventually let us know! So yes, I guess I am getting older.
If you have read my previous reflection on 26 July, you may remember that I wrote about decluttering. That theme has stayed with me. As I enter this new season, I find myself thinking about what I want to keep, what I need to let go of, and what really matters for the next twenty years of my life.
I know that I need to take better care of myself to stay healthy and strong, so that I can continue to live these years purposefully. But I also realise that growing older is not simply about doing more, achieving more, or ticking more things off my list. Perhaps it is also about learning to let go, to simplify, and to make room for God.
I approach this season with gratitude, but perhaps also with a little trepidation. I am grateful for what I have today and for what I have been blessed to accomplish in recent years. I am happy with the life I have – a modest, but happy and healthy one.
One of the things I am particularly grateful for this year is completing my counselling training, both academically and through a local Catholic organisation, which I finished in August. While I continue to work with clients through a private agency, I will soon also be deployed as a counsellor in one of our local churches. This was not something I had imagined for this season of my life, and yet it feels like an unexpected and deeply meaningful new chapter, one that I receive with gratitude and a sense of quiet anticipation.
And so, as I read today’s readings for the Memorial of St Faustina Kowalska, it was the first reading that really spoke to my heart. It felt almost like a prayer for this new season of my life:
“May he give you the power through his Spirit… for your hidden self to grow strong.”
Wow. I don’t have to do this on my own.
I have no idea what the next 20 years will bring. There will surely be joys and disappointments, good health and perhaps difficult days, new beginnings and endings. But I am reminded today that I do not walk into this unknown future alone. Christ is with me, and the Holy Spirit gives me the strength I need — not necessarily to know what lies ahead, but to face whatever comes.
Paul continues:
“You will with all the saints have the strength to grasp the breadth and the length…. until knowing the love of Christ….you are filled with the utter fullness of God.”
How wonderful, and how comforting, to know that as I enter the evening of my life, I am not walking towards the sunset alone. I may no longer be young. I may officially be a ‘senior citizen’. My knees may complain a little more than they used to!
But I have God! I have Christ! I have the Holy Spirit! And I have the saints walking with me.
Perhaps growing older is not about having fewer possibilities. Perhaps it is about discovering more deeply, what truly matters, and having the courage to entrust the rest to God.
And so, as I begin this new chapter, I am grateful that I have God, my faith, my family, and some very special friends to travel this journey with me.
Perhaps this is what decluttering really means at this stage of life: not simply having less, but making room for what matters most.
(Today’s OXYGEN by Geraldine Nah)
Prayer: Lord, give me the strength to grow inwardly, the wisdom to let go of what I no longer need, and the courage to embrace whatever you have prepared for me. May the evening of my life be filled not with fear of what is ending, but with gratitude for what has been — and hope for what is still to come.
Thanksgiving: Thank you, Lord, for Your assurance that You will be with me as I walk through this new season with strength and courage. Thank You for the gift of the Holy Spirit and for the angels and saints who walk with me. Thank You for my family, my friends, and the many blessings You have placed in my life. Help me to receive this new chapter with gratitude, trust, and an open heart. Amen.
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