How did the ban on St. Faustina's messages happen?

St. Faustina had less than three winters of education. She wrote her Diary at the request of her confessor but it contained a number of grammatical errors. During her lifetime, she kept the notebooks of the Diary in her own possession. After her death, the Mother Superior asked one of the sisters to rewrite the Diary. In rewriting St. Faustina's hand-written Diary, this sister chose to add or delete certain little words and made grammatical changes. She also accidently left out some words, sentences, and even entire pages. Then an Italian translation was made of this inaccurate copy of the Diary. This was part of the reason why the Revelations to St. Faustina were banned for a time.

Since Poland was a Communist country at this time, it was difficult to get an accurate translation out of Poland to Rome to clear up the misunderstandings. Therefore the ban remained for about twenty years. However, the Cardinal of Krakow, the late Pope John Paul II, asked a prominent Polish theologian to examine her Diary. The theologian wanted nothing to do with the project, but once he began to read her writings he ended up devoting a good part of his life to this project. He and others were impressed by the fact that St. Faustina, who had such a minimal education, wrote so clearly and carefully about the Mystical life. Six months before he became Pope, Cardinal Wojtyla lifted the ban on the Divine Mercy Message that had come to St. Faustina. Some are now proposing this simple farm girl as a Doctor of the Church. Her infused knowledge is clearly a grace from God.

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On the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (June 16), we ask, "What is the difference between the devotion of the Sacred Heart and the Divine Mercy message?"

We will not presume to outline here the whole teaching of St. Catherine's masterpiece, The Dialogue. Rather we will focus on the theme of Divine Mercy as it appears in the book.

"Our Lady, I know that you are very gracious and cannot help loving us whom your Son and your God has loved with the greatest love. Who can tell how often you allay the ire of the Judge when the virtue of divine justice is about to strike?"