Flora Cantábrica

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María Faustina Kowalska

“To this place I have called you”

She commuted into Warsaw from Ostrówek looking for a convent which would take her but she was turned down wherever she knocked to the gate. Finally she came to the house of the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy. She looked unremarkable, slightly delayed age-wise, rather feeble figure, a maidservant and cook by profession, no dowry, not even the most meagre of trousseaus. Unexceptional, a meagre little creature, poor, nothing special about her, not very promising. That’s how Mother Małgorzata Gimbutt described the candidate on a preliminary interview to Mother General, Mother Leonarda Cielecka, who was not very keen on admitting persons with such a background into the Congregation. Mother Michaela Moraczewska, superior of the Warsaw house, who was present during the conversation, offered to speak to the candidate herself. Through the locutory door which was ajar she saw an unpretentious girl and at first, on observing her somewhat shabby appearance, had a mind to turn her away but it occurred to her that it would be more charitable first to talk to her. During the conversation she saw the candidate in a better light and wanted to admit her, so she advised the girl to ask the Master of the house whether he would accept her. Helenka knew this meant going to the chapel. While she prayed there she heard the words, I do accept; you are in My Heart (Diary 14). When she returned to the reception room she repeated these words to Mother Superior, who said, If the Lord has accepted, then I also will accept. Helenka’s immediate entry was prevented by poverty, and Mother Superior advised her to continue for a time in service and save up for a small trousseau, testing the firmness of her vocation.

t last on 1 August 1925, the vigil of the Feast of Our Lady Queen of Angels, the day came when Helenka Kowalska crossed the threshold into the convent enclosure. I felt immensely happy; she confided in her diary, it seemed to me I had stepped into the life of Paradise. A single prayer was bursting forth from my heart, one of praise (Diary 17). But already after three weeks she observed that there was little time in the convent for prayer, and wanted to “move to a stricter order.” At night, when she prayed prostrating herself on the floor, she saw the tortured face of Jesus and asked, Jesus, who has hurt You so much? «It is you who will cause Me this pain if you leave this convent» Jesus replied. It is to this place that I called you and nowhere else; and I have prepared many graces for you (Diary 19). She apologised to Jesus and immediately revoked her decision.

After just a few weeks in the convent Mother Superior sent the postulant Helenka along with two other sisters to Skolimów, in the suburbs, for reasons of health, which had deteriorated due to the fairly strict fasts practised in the house and in service, and also due to the spiritual experience of a new life in the convent. At Skolimów she asked Jesus whom she should pray for. In reply she had a vision of purgatory, from which she learned that the greatest torment of the souls in this misty place, full of fire was longing for God. In her heart of hearts she heard the words, My Mercy does not want this, but Justice demands it (Diary 20). From then on Helenka prayed all the more fervently for the souls in purgatory, to help them, and God permitted her to establish a closer form of contact with them.

Mother Janina Olga Bartkiewicz, who was postulant mistress at the time, showed a big heart to young postulants preparing for the religious life, but at the same time made big demands of them and directed them firmly. Of Helenka she used to say that she had an inner life of her very own and that her little soul must be dear to Jesus. Sister Szymona Nalewajk, since she and Helenka were postulants in the same period, admired Helenka for taking all the humiliations so meekly and without grumbling. I was amazed a junior postulant was capable of such self-restraint and goodness, she later wrote. This conduct was inspired by Helenka’s fervent faith and concern to be like Jesus trusting in the Heavenly Father even when He was on the cross and Who was meek and humble throughout His life, loving all people with a patient, understanding, and indescribably self-sacrificing love.

Helenka spent the last months of her postulancy in the novice house in Kraków, where she arrived on 23 January 1926. The novice mistress at the time was Mother Małgorzata Gimbutt, a prayerful person and devout practitioner of the mortifications, meek and quiet, who educated the young nuns entrusted to her care above all by the example of her life. She was the tutor who prepared Helenka to take the veil and directed her in the first months of her novitiate.

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