Conflicts of St. Faustina
Sister wrote faithfully in her diary, at her director's
(Fr. Sopocko) command. Should she forget or not be diligent
in this task, she was reprimanded by the Lord Himself.
Taking this task very seriously, the other sisters would
raise objections to the amount of time she devoted to this
work. No one was permitted to see the diary except Fr.
Sopocko.
Trials and conflicts abounded, preparing her for God's work.
One of the signs that a work is from God, is that it will be
opposed from all sides. Sister Faustina was not only opposed by
many of her fellow sisters, but her confessors and superiors
also regarded her with suspicion, even to the point of calling
her an hysteric.
Not only did these exterior trials trouble her, she also had
great inner conflicts. In the beginning, when God first began to
reveal Himself to her, she was like a happy little child. After
sharing her experiences with her superiors, she gradually began
to be regarded with more and more suspicion. This doubt began to
make inroads into her own beliefs, and she began to regard
herself with the same suspicions.
Because these and many other conflicts figured so importantly
in Sister Faustina's spiritual and emotional growth, much of the
film will be devoted to depicting them. Here are just some of
these conflicts:
INNER CONFLICTS
During her 'dark night', when she was brought from mental prayer
to contemplation, she desired God terribly yet her experience
was one of feeling rejected, even despised, by God. This was a
purification to prepare her for great sanctity and a great
mission, a horrible storm of darkness and suffering for her.
Though she was known prior as a very cheerful person, everyone
now looked upon her as an object of pity. The Lord would ask her
to tell her confessors things regarding His visits and messages,
and they would not believe her. This made her very afraid to
open up her inner life, and yet the Lord was always pushing her
to tell more, withholding nothing. Failing to do so would bring
about the sternest reprimands from the Lord recorded in the
diary. The Lord was preparing her to be totally open and
transparent with her confessors and superiors and very precise
with her words, because in the very near future she would be
relating to them a most important message. Without this
training, in spite of the pain it caused her, she would not have
been able to relate this message properly and fulfill her
mission. It started in the convent with the vision to paint the
Image and have a new feast day proclaimed in the church. The
fact that she couldn't paint caused her great dismay over the
Lord's request. This conflict didn't resolve until almost 4
years later, when the Lord introduced her in person, to her
spiritual director. This director, Father Michael Sopocko, had
been seen by Faustina twice in visions granted by the Lord, and
she was promised that he would help her. Later, after much
scrutiny of her and her words, he took her to an artist in
Vilnius, Eugene Kazimirowski, to get the Image painted. (It is
this Image which Mercy Films, Inc. has the restored version of
on this site).
As she couldn’t paint, and having just a few semesters of
education, couldn't converse with the Church's hierarchy well
enough to push the cause of the feast, she experienced great
conflict. Before she met Fr. Sopocko, in her zeal to accomplish
the Lord's will, she asked some of the other sisters to paint
the Image. Word spread, and she became regarded as crazy. They
accused her of delusions, even of being possessed.
She now began to mistrust herself. Was this an illusion? Was
she crazy like everyone thought? As a defense, she vowed to
ignore the Lord and these visions. Ironically, one of her
confessors told her she must not ignore them, again causing more
conflict. One day she was in the chapel and heard these words:
“you will prepare the world for My final coming”. She got up to
run out and ignore the words, but a “mysterious force” held her
back, and she couldn’t leave. Jesus then told her, “you cannot
run from me for I am everywhere”. And then he told her that if
she neglects these task (diary 154), she will be held
responsible for a vast multitude of souls. Imagine the conflict!
Here she and everyone else is doubting her own sanity, yet she
is getting a message that makes her responsible for the eternal
well-being of multitudes of souls. She is afraid to speak to
anyone about it, and doesn’t have the foggiest idea how to
accomplish it.
Next, the Lord asked her to found a new order of nuns and
group of lay people to beg the mercy of God upon the world and
prepare it for His final coming. Every time she went to start
this work, however, she had to retreat due to sickness, darkness
or a superior saying 'not yet'. She was never able to physically
found this order during her lifetime, in spite of positive
confirmations from the Lord that it was His will. How much of a
failure she must have felt in the beginning of this conflict and
not being able to fulfill this work. It was only much later,
when she resigned herself perfectly to God's will regarding the
new order, that she had peace as to it's outcome. Today many
believe the reason for this tremendous struggle was to purify
her attachment to her own order, for she did not want to leave
it. This was her last attachment in this world, and being free
of it freed her heart to love perfectly the God who was drawing
her to Himself. She did, however, lay the groundwork for this
order in her diary, and today we see a number of orders founded
in the spirit of this order, and the lay persons who live and
spread this message fulfill this request as well.
Her conflicts resolve beautifully when she comes, through the
course of her life, to peacefully accept everything the Lord was
doing with her regardless of how she suffered from it – she put
her own will and understanding aside - to trust God for
everything. Her resolution was the very message given to her for
the world, “Mankind will not have peace until it turns with
trust to my mercy”. (diary 300) So the message and the messenger
became one:
(Diary 742) My
daughter, if I demand through you that people revere My mercy,
you should be the first to distinguish yourself by this
confidence in My mercy.
Her life becomes a mirror image of Christ, suffering for
souls and progressing the mission of redemption.
Sister had believers and detractors until the end. Her inner
life was not open for scrutiny by anyone but Fr. Sopocko. She
was not allowed to show the diary to anyone else, nor discuss
what God was doing with her to anyone other than he. This led
others to anger, suspicion, envy and jealousy. The head superior
Mother Michael was a supporter but also had some reservations,
preferring to leave most matters of relevance to Fr. Sopocko. No
one but he knew of the degree of her gifts and special union
with the Trinity and heaven, until well after her death. If
fact, her life was so well hidden none of the other sisters in
the convent even knew of her connection to the Image and the
Chaplet until two years after she died.
© 2008 Jim Mattingly, Mercy Films, Inc.
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