“My sanctity and perfection consist in the close union of my will with the will of God. God never violates our free will.” —St. Faustina Kowalska

It’s human nature to desire to be well-liked and understood. Many of those around Faustina, including some of the women in her own community, saw her single-minded drive to bring the Lord’s Divine Mercy message to the world as egotistical and delusional. Faustina didn’t care what anyone other than Jesus thought of her, and she radically embraced being his messenger. Faustina was in her cell on the evening of February 22, 1931, when Jesus appeared, dressed in white with two rays shining from him. He provided some specific instructions: Faustina was to have an image of him painted with the words “Jesus, I trust in you.” She did not live to see the Divine Mercy spread worldwide through the efforts of Father Sopoćko and others; then banned; then revived through the promotion of Krakow Archbishop Karol Wojtyła. In 2000, as John Paul II, he canonized Faustina and designated the Sunday after Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday. But none of it might have happened if Faustina had not radically embraced her role as the Lord’s messenger, regardless of the personal slings and arrows that came along with it.

—from Radical Saints: 21 Women for the 21st Century, by Melanie Rigney