Having visited Poland recently, I had the opportunity to go to a lesser-known place connected with the Divine Mercy: the city of Płock (pronounced “Powotsk”), about two hours north of Warsaw. Those interested in the story of the Divine Mercy usually visit Krakow, where St. Faustyna died in 1938, and Vilnius, where the painting of the Divine Mercy was first shown in 1935. The relatively little-known Płock has quite a past in Polish history, having been an administrative center of the region of Mazovia in the Middle Ages before the rise of Warsaw as a major city of Poland. Płock was actually the capital of Poland from 1079–1138. Near its cathedral are walls of a Benedictine monastery, dating from the eleventh century. Płock is most distinguished, however, by the fact that it is the place Christ first appeared to Sister Faustyna Kowalska in 1931, in the form we know so well — as the Divine Mercy.
Sister Faustyna had joined the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in Warsaw in 1925, having been refused entry to several other convents. The religious order which opened its doors to her had various branches and nuns. Sister Faustyna was sent from Warsaw to the Płock convent in 1930, and stayed there two years. Her task was to help with the daily work there, and thus it is apt to briefly describe what this daily work entailed.
The focus of St. Faustyna’s religious order was to help young women who had come from difficult social backgrounds, to help them acquire skills, to start again. This great work of mercy was for those who felt they did not belong anywhere, who had lost their way, who were marginalized and poor. This order had been established in 1862 by Theresa Potocka, after she had visited a similar establishment in Laval, France (which had arisen in the wake of the French Revolution where many had been left destitute, women even turning to prostitution to survive). At the same time, there was a similar order in Płock with a slightly different name, called the Institute of God’s Mercy, which had started through the efforts of the local bishop, Antony Julian Nowowiejski, and a laywoman, Jacobina Labadowska. This Institute helped poor girls acquire basic skills in what was called the Guardian Angel Center. Thus, there were groups in both Warsaw and in Płock focusing on merciful outreach, as there was a great need for it. This was well before Sister Faustyna came on the scene.
In a dramatic move, Bishop Nowowiejski invited the Warsaw Sisters of Our Lady to Mercy to Płock in 1899 and they united to form one convent, taking on the name of the Warsaw Convent, the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy. So now there was one larger order of nuns focused on mercy. The union of the groups focusing on the works of mercy appears to have been of fundamental historic importance. This order was focused on the poor, the abandoned and the forgotten, much as Christ’s outreach had been during His time on earth. There is much embedded meaning to ponder here — the peaceful uniting of the groups and the focus on merciful outreach. And much to ponder in the fact that Christ chose to appear in such a religious order, to one of its sisters.
When I visited Płock recently, I was informed by the sisters there that contemporaries of Sister Faustyna remembered her as having an agreeable, kind, friendly personality who got on well with the girls there. They were were taught sewing, ironing, professional laundry skills, as well as some literacy to help them with later employment. They also helped to bake bread, and with them Sister Faustyna helped to sell this bread at the front on the convent building in a room converted to a small bread shop, thus teaching some basic business skills. One imagines a kind, lively Sister Faustyna and the girls, dashing from the bakery in the basement to the shop above, with people walking by, deciding to buy fresh bread. There were continual interactions with the outside world, wrapping the bread and giving the correct change for the transaction. The bakery is still there. The bread shop is now a book shop. As well as practical skills, the young girls were taught the basics of their Catholic faith, its teachings and the sacraments. The girls always asked first to come to this place themselves. After hearing about it by word of mouth, they felt attracted to go there, sensing they had another chance at life. There was never any coercion involved.
The routine life of this young, seemingly ordinary nun hid a most remarkable event, about which she could not speak to her fellow nuns, only to her superior and confessor. One evening, on February 22, 1931, Sister Faustyna went to her room — her “cell” in the Płock convent — and saw Jesus walk through the wall. He just looked at her and she looked at him in this mysterious border of time and eternity. No words were exchanged initially; there was simply an exchange of gazes. After some minutes, Jesus spoke to Sister Faustyna, and asked her to have painted the image that she saw and to write down what he was telling her. At the Płock convent, a copy of that famous handwritten entry is displayed and the Sisters can quote the entire page from memory.
In the evening, when I was in my cell I saw the Lord Jesus clothed in a white garment. One hand was raised in the gesture of blessing, the other was touching the garment at the breast. From beneath the garment, slightly drawn aside at the breast, there were emanating two large rays, one red, the other pale. In silence I kept my gaze fixed on the Lord; my soul was struck with awe, but also with great joy. After a while, Jesus said to me: “Paint an image according to the pattern you see, with the signature: Jesus, I trust in You. I desire that this image be venerated, first in your chapel, and [then] throughout the world” (Diary, 47).
Actually, it was not Sister Faustyna’s first vision of Christ, as she had seen him with a suffering visage at a dance party as a young girl, on which occasion Jesus urged her to go to Warsaw to join a convent, though not telling her how. She did go as soon as she could but she kept trying and being refused. After a year of work as household help within a Warsaw family, she was accepted by the order of Our Lady of Mercy. Likewise, there was no “how to do it” plan when Christ appeared in Płock, asking for a painting to be done of what she saw. There was no incidental conversation, just the simple statement of a task to be done. Such was the young sister’s trust in Christ that she did not doubt it would be done, despite not knowing how to paint nor knowing of any painters.
After a two-year stay in Płock, Sister Faustyna returned to Warsaw in 1932. As sisters were sent to wherever they were needed, she was then sent to Łagiewniki in Krakow and on May 1, 1933 she took her final vows there and became a perpetual sister of Our Lady of Mercy. After taking her vows, Sister Faustyna was transferred to Vilnius, where she met Father Michael Sopoćko, the appointed confessor to the nuns. This was where the next dramatic phase of the Divine Mercy story took place. In the Vilnius branch of her convent, Fr. Michal Sopoćko must have been quite taken aback when this nun revealed to him that she recognized his face from a previous vision, and then told him that he was to help her in a very significant way regarding the Divine Mercy painting to be spread to the whole world. In fact, Fr. Sopoćko, from his youth, poor and devout, had been very focused on mercy himself and he became central in the unfurling of the heavenly plan. He listened to the accounts of her visions, and the extraordinary request for a painting commissioned by God Himself, for a feast day, a novena. He did have her psychologically examined (she was seen as “normal”). In fact, Fr. Sopoćko did know a painter in Vilnius at that time, Eugeniusz Kazimirowski, and asked him to have sittings with Sister Faustyna during 1934. When things did not appear to go too well, the painter asked Fr. Sopoćko to stand in as a model for Christ and things went well with the painting after that. It is significant to ponder this — a sign of the priest as an “alter Christus” — in what one could call the most amazing painting of the twentieth century.
On April 26–28, 1935, one week after Easter, the Image was shown to the world for the first time in Vilnius at the Marian shrine of Ostra Brama (in Lithuanian, Aušros vartai) in a small chapel, on a bridge above a street. Who would have picked this tiny place, but then who would have picked Nazareth for the Incarnation? When the raised windows of the diminutive chapel were opened, the drama of the Divine Mercy picture being shown to the world unfolded. Jesus gazed (“like My gaze from the Cross”) at the curious crowds, one arm raised in greeting, standing alongside the much bigger revered Icon of Madonna of Ostra Brama, the Mother of Mercy. The Divine Mercy, next to Our Lady of Mercy, and Sister Faustyna from the convent of Our Lady of Mercy. Sister Faustyna records that the Divine Mercy image, came alive with rays piercing all present, looking out onto a world hurtling toward the darkness of war. Prior to World War II, Faustyna had seen visions of the concentration camps and people in striped clothes, though she did not know what it all meant.
In the early 1930s Sister Faustyna already had signs of illness. In 1936, she fell ill again. Diagnosed with tuberculosis, she moved to the sanatorium in Pradnik, Krakow and continued to spend most of her time in prayer. In July 1937, the first holy cards with the Divine Mercy image were created and Faustyna provided instructions for the Novena of Divine Mercy, which she reported as a message from Jesus. Faustyna’s health greatly deteriorated by the end of the year, while the Divine Mercy image continued to be promoted and grew in popularity.
On October 5, 1938, she passed away at the age of thirty-three. She was buried on October 7 and is currently “at rest” at the Basilica of Divine Mercy in Krakow, Poland, visited by multitudes of pilgrims. As stated, some holy cards depicting the image had already been printed by Fr. Sopoćko, and during the war people clung to them, telling later of miraculous escapes from terror and bombings.
What happened to the Płock convent? As with many religious buildings, it was seized by the Communists in 1950 and became degraded over the years, with walls pulled down and much debris left there. The nuns had to leave and live elsewhere. Then in 1990, after the demise of the Soviet Union, the convent was restored to the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, but it took a long time to clean and to re-establish as a convent, chapel, and place for pilgrims to stay — work which continues to this day. A small museum was made which has historic photos from the earlier part of the century and the 1930s. This restoration has taken over thiry years, and now pilgrims can see the exact spot where Christ appeared to Sister Faustyna for the first time. While the walls of the cell were destroyed during the Communist years, the actual location of the cell was known and re-established, as was the very spot where the wall was, through which Christ had walked. Each pilgrim can see it, next to the larger church there. The location of the original cell has been made into a beautiful chapel and the Divine Mercy Image is displayed at the exact spot where Sister Faustyna saw Christ.
Pilgrims have a place to stay in Płock at simple quarters within the original buildings. And there is 24/7 adoration and several daily Masses. Interestingly, the sisters in Płock continue their work of merciful outreach to all pilgrims, with talks on subjects of interest, much needed in our confused, turbulent times.
The convent also has a “Window of Life” (in Polish “Okno Zycia”) set into the wall of their building where any mother who is unable to care for a newborn baby can leave her child. Once the child is left there, a signal is activated and the child is immediately taken by the nuns and is assured of good care. One sister told me of three such rescues in the past five years. There are many such Windows of Life throughout Poland, and within most European countries, in fact, such that it is commonly known of by most people. The custom of rescuing such babies through such windows or hatches has existed since the Middle Ages. The Płock Window of Life is close to where Christ first appeared as the Divine Mercy. And there is much to ponder in that fact.
While Warsaw, Krakow, and Vilnius are known as significant places in the Divine Mercy story, it is very worthwhile to come to visit smaller places where dramatic events occurred. Being in the place where Christ walked through the convent walls, as He had walked through the walls to greet the apostles after the Resurrection, one cannot help but gaze in awe and joy, as St. Faustyna did on that momentous evening in February 1931 in Płock. Just a bus ride from Warsaw, it is well worth including on more Divine Mercy pilgrimages.
About Wanda Skowronska, PhD
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