Saint Faustina Kowalska

Born Helena Kowalska in 1905 to a poor Polish farming family, she entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy in 1925, taking the name Faustina. Working mostly in humble convent roles — cook, gardener, doorkeeper — she reported extensive private revelations of Jesus, recorded at her spiritual director's instruction in a diary later published as "Divine Mercy in My Soul." Her visions centered on Christ's mercy toward sinners, giving rise to the Divine Mercy image, the Divine Mercy Chaplet, and the observance of Divine Mercy Sunday, now practiced throughout the Catholic world. She died of tuberculosis in 1938 at only 33, and was canonized in 2000 by fellow Pole John Paul II, who declared her the "first saint of the new millennium."