Flora Cantábrica

María Faustina Kowalska.3,English.12.1,22

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María Faustina Kowalska

2. Extraordinary Light

At the age of sixteen Helenka bade farewell to her parents, brothers and sisters and left home. She went to Aleksandrów Łódzki, a town where Kazimierz Bryszewski and his wife Leokadia had a bakery and shop at No. 30 on Parzęczewska St. (now 1 Maja 7 St.) and they needed help with the housework and looking after their only son Zenek. Mummy served customers in the shop, he recalled years later, and Helenka tidied up, helped with the cooking, and had to wash up, carry out the refuse and bring water as there was no running water. She also brought in food for employees who were provided with meals by my parents. If time allowed she would play with me. She had a lot of work, as there were four rooms in the house, the shop, and the bakery.

One day she saw there an extraordinary light. She thought it must be a fire and she started shouting just when the bakers were putting the loaves into the oven. It turned out to be a false alarm. Soon after that mysterious event she returned to Głogowiec to ask her parents’ permis up their best child. They gave an excuse of not being able to afford a dowry and refused permission. Helenka went into service again, this time in Łódź. First she stayed at the house of her uncle Michał Rapacki, at No. 9 in the Krośnieńska, and worked for three ladies who were Tertiaries of St. Francis. When she started the job she asked to be allowed time for daily Mass, visiting the sick and dying, and using the ministry of her mistresses’ confessor.

On 2 February 1923 Helenka was sent by an employment agency to the house of Mrs. Marcjanna Sadowska, who had a shop at No. 29 in the Abramowskiego and needed a child-minder for her three children. Whenever I left the house, Mrs. Sadowska said of her maid years later, I could rest assured. She was better at keeping the house than I was. She was kind, courteous, and hard-working. I’ve absolutely nothing to hold against her, she was just so good. Words cannot describe how good she was. Helenka looked after her employer’s children and also after those in need, of whom there was no shortage. A sick man lived in a lumber room under the stairs in the house. Helenka cared for him not only by bringing food but also by asking a priest to look after his salvation.

When she was eighteen she once again asked her parents’ permission to enter a convent and again was refused. After this refusal, I turned myself over to the vain things of life, paying no attention to the call of grace, although my soul found no satisfaction in any of these things. The incessant call of grace caused me much anguish; she wrote in her diary, I tried, however, to stifle it with amusements (Diary 8). So she did not turn down an invitation to a dance in the Wenecja Park. As I began to dance, she wrote in her diary, I suddenly saw Jesus at my side, Jesus racked with pain, stripped of His clothing, all covered with wounds, who spoke these words to me: «How long shall I suffer you and how long will you keep putting Me off?» (Diary 9). Under the pretext of a headache she quickly left the company, making her way to the nearest church, the Cathedral of St. Stanisław Kostka. There she prostrated herself before the Blessed Sacrament and begged the Lord to tell her what she was to do next. Go at once to Warsaw, came the answer, you will enter a convent there. Without asking her parents’ consent she packed and went to the capital.

Helenka asked the pastor of St. James’ parish, Father Jakub Dąbrowski, for help. He directed her to his acquaintances, Aldona and Samuel Lipszyc, in Ostrówek in the district of Klembów, who needed a nanny for their children, with a note saying that he did not know the girl but hoped she would be useful. There Helenka found the refuge from which she set off in search of a convent, and once she had found it stayed for another year to save some money for a modest monastic trousseau. I remember her wholesome, happy smile, Aldona Lipszyc recalled after many years, She used to sing a lot and I always think of her in connection with the hymn she sang most often and which I learned from her, «I am to revere Jesus hidden in the Sacrament».

In the Lipszyc household Helenka was treated like a member of the family, they all loved and respected her for her hard work and cheerfulness, she had a way with children, in short – she had all it takes to be a good wife and mother. Mrs. Lipszyc tried to get her to marry. But Helenka felt her heart was so big that no human love would satisfy it. It was during the octave of Corpus Christi, she recorded the most important event of her time at Ostrówek in her diary, God filled my soul with the interior light of a deeper knowledge of Him as Supreme Goodness and Supreme Beauty. I came to know how very much God loves me. Eternal is His love for me. It was at vespers. In simple words, which flowed from the heart, I made to God a vow of perpetual chastity. From that moment I felt a greater intimacy with God, my Spouse. From that moment I set up a little cell in my heart where I always kept company with Jesus ,