Flora Cantábrica

María Faustina Kowalska.9.English.26.1,22

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María Faustina Kowalska

8. Dark nights

Along with the new tasks, there now came a second stage of anguishing purification known as the passive nights of the spirit. The background to and instrument whereby God effected this in Sister Faustina’s soul was the work for the implementation of the concept of a new congregation. At first Sister Faustina thought that Jesus wanted her to leave her mother Congregation and found a contemplative order. It was with this in mind that on 21 March 1936 she left Vilnius. On her way to Walendów she stopped at Warsaw, where she had the opportunity to discuss the matter with Mother General Michaela Moraczewska, in whom she had always been able to confide. Having listened to Sister Faustina, Mother General said that for the time being it was God’s will that she should stay in her Congregation, where she had made her perpetual vows, but she also expressed an opinion that the work of mercy which Jesus was entrusting to her must be very beautiful, since it was meeting with so much opposition from Satan. However, she advised her not to hurry with the foundation of a new congregation, for if the idea indeed came from God, then it would be accomplished in its time.

After a few weeks’ stay at Walendów she went to the Congregation’s house at Derdy, which was just a kilometre away where she cooked for the small group of sisters and over thirty charges. Her kitchen help, Sister Serafina Kukulska recalled, was a girl with a very difficult character, a convert, whom no-one ever wanted to work with. But with Sister Faustina the girl changed and was never the same again. That was the quiet, godly influence Sister Faustina had on sinful souls. There was not much work for her to do at Derdy, and Sister Faustina felt as if staying in this house was almost like a holiday. But soon she had to leave for Kraków, where there were better medical facilities for the treatment of tuberculosis. She also hoped that coming to that house would mean the final accomplishing of God’s plans concerning the foundation of a new congregation.

Although she had already realised that the new “congregation” would be a great work in the Church, comprising men’s and women’s congregations as well as lay associations, as she wrote to Father Sopoćko in April 1936, she was still convinced that her role in this was to found a contemplative order. On arriving in Kraków she met with Father Andrasz, who advised her to keep praying and exercising acts of self-mortification until the Feast of the Sacred Heart, when he would give her an answer to this question. However, under heavy inner pressure, Sister Faustina did not wait until the feast-day but told Father Andrasz during her weekly confession that she had decided to leave the Congregation. Her Cracovian spiritual director observed that since she had taken the decision she would be taking the full responsibility on herself. At first she was happy to be leaving, but on the next day was overwhelmed by darkness and felt she had lost God’s presence, so she decided to put off this move a little until her next meeting with her confessor.

At first Mother General had not consented to her leaving the Congre- gation and had warned Sister Faustina to beware of delusions and imprudent moves, but now that she was travelling to Kraków for a visitation, on 4 May 1937, she said: Until the present, Sister, I have always restrained you, but now I leave you complete freedom to choose to do as you wish; you can leave the Congregation or you can stay (Diary 1115). Sister Faustina decided to leave and straightaway write to the Holy Father to dispense her from her vows. But yet again she was overwhelmed by such darkness that she returned to Mother General’s room to tell her of her tribulation and struggle.

This was her last attempt to leave the Congregation, but the spiritual struggle continued. She wrote in her diary, No-one can understand or comprehend, nor can I myself describe, my torments. But there can be no sufferings greater than this. The sufferings of the martyrs are not greater because, at such times, death would be a relief for me. There is nothing to which I can compare these sufferings, this endless agony of the soul (Diary 1116). Her soul was being purified in the crucible of spiritual battle. Her mind, will, memory, emotions and all her senses were submitting to God more and more harmoniously and preparing her soul for full union with Him. God never sends suffering that is unbearable, she used to say, for the greater the suffering, the greater God’s grace. In the darkness of the passive nights God was granting her moments of respite and great joy. I suddenly saw the Lord Jesus, she described one of these moments, who spoke these words to me: «Now I know it is not for the graces or gifts that you love Me, but because My will is dearer to you than life. That is why I am uniting Myself with you so intimately as with no other creature.» At that moment, Jesus disappeared. My soul was filled with the presence of God. I know that the gaze of the Mighty One rests upon me. I plunged myself completely in the joy that flows from God. I continued throughout the whole day without interruption, thus immersed in God (Diary 707-708).

In June 1937 she made a record in her diary of the final shape of the work which was one but had three hues. The first hue comprised the souls separated off from the world, which would burn in immolation before the Divine Majesty, begging for mercy for the whole world and prepare it for the Second Coming of Christ. The second hue would be the active congregations, which would combine prayer with acts of mercy and make the merciful love of God present in an egoistic world. The third hue could be made up of all the people who by daily acts of mercy on behalf of their neighbours, by their words and prayers and for the love of Jesus would fulfil the tasks of this work.

The achievement of this objective not only brought Sister Faustina the greatest amount of suffering, but also led her to full union with Jesus, to what is generally referred to as mystical betrothal and mystical marriage. Purified in the passive nights, the powers of her soul no longer put up any opposition: her reason and will longed only for God and whatever He longed for. The Lord brought her into the world of an ever closer union with Him, preparing her for receiving the grace of mystical marriage. At that moment I was transfixed by the Divine light and felt I belonged exclusively to God, and I experienced the supreme spiritual freedom, the like of which I had never dreamed of before (Diary 1681). Now only a very thin veil of faith separated her from the union with God to which the saints accede in heaven.