Sisters of the Merciful Jesus

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Sister Faustyna

The Sisters of the Merciful Jesus are a Roman Catholic religious order that was founded in 1947 by the beatified Polish priest Michał Sopoćko (1888–1975) based on the visions of the Polish nun and saint Maria Faustyna Kowalska (1905–1938).

The sisters' apostolate is to ask for God's mercy for the world and to make it visible in the world through active charity .

history

Visions of Saint Faustina

As a religious sister of the Congregation of Our Lady of Mercy , Saint Faustina, according to her own statements documented in diaries, had visions of Jesus of Nazareth , who accordingly taught her various forms of devotion to the Divine Mercy that she should proclaim to the world. Accordingly, among other things, Jesus demanded the establishment of a religious community in which the sisters should ask for mercy for themselves and for the world. He had entrusted the souls of priests and religious in particular to them for prayer. According to Sister Faustynas' diary, Jesus also assured that his spirit would rest in this monastery and that he would give special blessings to the area around the monastery; out of love for the sisters he would remove all punishments that the justice of his father legitimately imposes.

Order rule

Sister Faustyna's diary records form the basis of the rule of the order . In the context of "general principles", it initially stipulated that there should not be more than 10 sisters in each house and that each sister should be "like a deceased" to the world; Faustyna set silence as the highest rule, which is why the community should join the ranks of the contemplative orders. The life of the sisters should be aligned with the life of Jesus, from birth to death on the cross , i.e. H. a life of poverty, contempt and suffering. The first priority should therefore be to kill , and strict fasting should be one of the external ones. Jesus explained to Faustyna that the strength of priests and religious would lie in these mortifications and in union with him. Sister Faustyna later realized that there should be three levels in the "new Congregation of the Divine Mercy" called for by Jesus : contemplative orders, active orders and lay apostolates.

Today the Sisters of the Merciful Jesus carry out an active apostolate with less strict rules and thus join the great Movement of Divine Mercy, the center of which is in the Shrine of Divine Mercy in Kraków - Łagiewniki . This movement now includes several active and contemplative orders, u. a. also the religious community in which Sister Faustyna lived herself, the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy , who run the Faustinum Association, in which the lay apostolate is in the foreground. The contemplative religious community desired by Sister Faustyna exists today in the monastery of the "Servants of Divine Mercy" in Poland.

Founding of the order

However, since Sister Faustyna died in 1938, she could not found or live in a new religious community herself. In 1947 this was finally taken over by Michael Sopocko , who was Sister Faustyna's confessor and spiritual leader from 1933 to 1936. For this purpose, six sisters, who had already taken vows in previous years and were prepared by Prof. Sopocko, settled in the Polish city of Myślibórz , where the motherhouse of the religious community is now also located. The first six sisters included Jadwiga Osinska, Izabela Naborowska, Ludmila Roszko, Zofia Komorowska, Adela Alibekow and Jadwiga Malkiewiczówna.

Facilities

Today there are 16 religious houses in Poland and 15 abroad. In Germany, three sisters live in Weiler-Simmerberg in the Allgäu.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ MFK diary
  2. ↑ cf. Diary MFK, pp. 435, 437.
  3. ↑ cf. Diary MFK, p. 532.
  4. ↑ cf. Diary MFK, p. 570.
  5. ↑ cf. Diary MFK, p. 533 ff.
  6. ↑ cf. Diary MFK, pp. 438, 526, 532, 538.
  7. ↑ cf. Diary MFK, p. 531.
  8. ↑ http://www.faustinum.pl/ . Website of the "Faustinum" association based in Cracow.
  9. ↑ http://misericordiadei.eu/ . Website of the "Servants of Divine Mercy" in Poland.
  10. ^ Addresses of the religious houses . Website of the Sisters of the Merciful Jesus. Retrieved October 24, 2011.