divine-mercy-in-my-soul

46. The Saint had in mind here the fulfillment of God‟s desires regarding the painted
image of Christ with the red and pale rays and the signature: “Jesus, I trust in You”; the
public veneration of the image; and the making known of the chaplet and novena to The
Divine Mercy. All these demands were realized as a result of the endeavors of Father
Sopocko.
47. Sister Faustina, then a postulant, was working in the kitchen with Sister
Marcianna Oswiecimska. Sister Marcianna told her to wash and put away the dishes, and
left. Helen (later Sister Faustina) set to work, but Sisters kept coming for the second dinner,
and every now and then one of them would ask Helen to serve her dinner or do her a favor.
Helen, not wanting to refuse, served each one, but did not do her assigned work. When
Sister Marcianna came back and saw the dishes still not put away, she thought Helen had
neglected her order and told her that for a penance she was to sit on the table, while she
herself did the work.
Sister Marcianna – Julia Oswiecimska was born in 1897. She entered the
Congregation in 1919. For many years she fulfilled the duties of a cook. She was energetic,
demanding, but full of love of neighbor (Sister Marcianna‟s Recol.).
48. Only superiors can give orders “by virtue of obedience,” and that concerning only
serious matters. Sister Marcianna could not do it and certainly did not do it. She told Helen
to sit on the table as a form of penance. Helen was surprised by this kind of penance and
hesitated to obey the order. Then Sister Marcianna asked the postulant: “Is this what your
obedience is like, Helen?” This question was misunderstood by Sister Faustina as an order
“by virtue of obedience” (Sister Marcianna‟s Recol.).
49. In some houses, including the Warsaw house at Zytnia Street, the Sisters used to
have a night watch. The Sisters on duty would circle the house, light the yard, and look
through the windows to protect the house against burglary.
50. This is the popular name of the Franciscan Sisters of the Family of Mary, a
congregation founded by Archbishop Felinski in 1857. The motherhouse of the Congregation
is in Warsaw, at Zelazna Street and is next to the Generalate of the Congregation of the
Sisters of Our lady of Mercy.
51. See footnote 7.
52. She was probably replacing Sister Modest Rzeczkowska, who was ill and had to
undergo treatment in Warsaw (Recol. Of Sister Pelagia).
53. All Sisters devote one day at the beginning of the month to spiritual renewal, the
so called one-day retreat. There is no recreation on that day. The Sisters keep silence and
have an hour of meditation, the Way of the cross, monthly examination of conscience, and a
half hour meditation about death (cf. Const. Congr.).
54. Every month, each novice spent one day, appointed by the Sister Directress, as
the so-called day of the crusade. On that day she was obliged to practice greater
recollection and union with the Lord Jesus in the Eucharist, ask the Sister Directress for
some additional mortification, and offer all her work, prayer and sufferings to the Lord Jesus
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