The experience of God’s presence in the spiritual life of St Faustina

The present study approaches the theme in four stages. First, it delineates the modes of God’s objective presence in the life of the believer. Second, it analyzes the specific modalities through which St Faustina perceived and experienced this presence. Third, it identifies the essential content of her mystical experience. Finally, it considers the principal fruits of that experience. Throughout the greater part of her spiritual itinerary, Faustina’s life is marked by an uninterrupted and vital dialogue with Christ, who not only imparts to her an understanding of the innermost reality of things but also constitutes the source of strength enabling her apostolic and ascetical endeavors. Although the narrative of her dynamic relationship with Christ contains a remarkable number of extraordinary moments of divine intervention, Faustina cannot be regarded as a passive medium through whom God merely reaffirms His presence and mercy to the world. God indeed communicates these realities, yet He does so by making manifest the salvific work accomplished in her personal life. What emerges, therefore, is an experience of a salvific and transformative presence, as is borne out by its fruits. Among the most significant fruits of Faustina’s spiritual transformation are her capacity for total self-offering, her heroic charity toward others, and her deliberate embrace of suffering in union with the Crucified Christ.