St. Faustina Kowalska

Ave Maria!  Yesterday, October 5, was the feast day of St. Faustina Kowalska, the well-known and much-loved apostle of Divine Mercy.  Dear St. Faustina continues to teach me so much about God's wondrous love and boundless mercy.  My paperback copy of her diary, Divine Mercy In My Soul, is always close at hand and is pretty tattered after 18 years of constant use.  I sure was glad to recently discover that her entire diary is available on the Web here! 

One of my most favorite prayers of St. Faustina is the one she prayed during the Mass on the day of her perpetual vows.  I've longed since memorized it and pray it each morning as I prepare for daily Mass.  "Today I place my heart on the paten where Your Heart has been placed, O Jesus, and today I offer myself together with You to God, Your Father and mine, as a sacrifice of love and praise. Father of Mercy, look upon the sacrifice of my heart, but through the wound in the Heart of Jesus."  How marvelous it is to be able to offer my poor, little heart on the paten with the magnificent, all-loving Sacred Heart of my Beloved Spouse!

Yesterday afternoon I was delighted to read on the Web site "Rome Reports" that seven cardinals have written to Pope Benedict XVI asking him to begin the process of making St. Faustina a Doctor of the Church.  In the long history of the Catholic Church, we have only 34 doctors, three of whom are women -- St. Teresa of Avila, St. Catherine of Siena and St. Therese of Lisieux.  During World Youth Day in Madrid this summer, the Holy Father announced that the next saint to be made a doctor is Spaniard San Juan de Avila.  St. Faustina may or may not join their ranks, but for those of us who know and love her, it doesn't really matter.  For us as for her, all that matters is praising and proclaiming Divine Mercy Himself and, through His goodness and mercy, becoming more and more like Him. 

Dear Lord, with your Apostle of Divine Mercy, St. Faustina, I beg of you:  "Let every beat of my heart be a new hymn of thanksgiving to You, O God."  Amen!  Alleluia!