Difficulty with Ordinary Human Relationships and Empathy
Christian charity is not merely a love for humanity in the abstract. It is expressed concretely through patience, conversation, friendship, encouragement, and concern for the particular people whom God places before us. While the saints often practiced detachment from worldly attachments, that detachment ordinarily enabled them to love other individuals more deeply rather than less.
Throughout her Diary, Sr. Faustina frequently expresses great concern for souls, sinners, and humanity as a whole in general terms. She offers prayers and sacrifices for the conversion of the world. Yet when we examine her interactions with the actual people around her, a different pattern often emerges.
A striking feature of the Diary is the frequency with which Sr. Faustina refers to other people simply as "creatures."
The term is, of course, theologically correct. Every human being is a creature of God. Yet the way the term is employed is unusual. Rather than speaking of fellow sisters, friends, companions, or family members, she repeatedly speaks of "creatures" in a dismissive manner. The phrasing show additional documentation that Sr. Faustina disliked talking to her fellow nuns;
"I do not seek help from creatures, but God is everything to me." (Diary 209)
"Do not rely on creatures, even in the smallest things..." (Diary 295)
"I do not expect anything from creatures, and therefore I am not disappointed." (Diary 766)
"Nor do I wonder at the deceitfulness of creatures..." (Diary 1040)
"I commune with creatures in so far as it is pleasing to Him." (Diary 1021)
Taken individually, these passages can be interpreted as expressions of traditional spiritual detachment. Taken collectively, however, they contribute to an unusually dismissive view of ordinary human relationships with her fellow nuns. Again and again, the people around Sr. Faustina are presented not as companions in the spiritual life but as distractions, sources of misunderstanding, or creatures from whom one must remain detached.
This tendency is visible in her description of a visit from her family. Rather than delighting in conversation with her brothers and sisters, she writes:
"When, tired from these talks and yearning for solitude and silence, I quietly slipped out into the garden..." (Diary 401)
When her family followed her, she devised a way to avoid participating in the conversation:
"I asked my brothers to sing for me... And during this time I was able to devote myself to interior prayer without shunning their company." (Diary 401)
The episode is noteworthy because it is presented as a spiritual success. Her family wished to spend time with her. Sr. Faustina's objective, however, was not to deepen the relationship but to withdraw into her interior world while remaining physically present.
A similar dynamic appears elsewhere. While accompanying Sr. Faustina to a doctor's appointment, another sister became increasingly anxious about transportation and expenses:
"What are we going to do? I don't have enough money to pay for the cab." (Diary 1636)
Sr. Faustina already knew that sufficient money had been provided by the superior. It seems that she was holding onto it without telling the other nun. Nevertheless, she remained silent while the sister continued to worry. She then writes:
"I laughed and told sister that I was not worried one bit... But I saw that my deep peace was getting on her nerves." (Diary 1636)
The striking feature of the incident is that the obvious solution would have been to reassure the anxious sister that she had enough money. Instead, Sr. Faustina focuses on her tranquility leaving the anxiety of the other sister unaddressed.
A similar pattern appears in Sr. Faustina's account of a planned trip to Calvary. She records that her companion was "filled with joy" at the prospect of the excursion (Diary 64). After Sr. Faustina’s voice concluded that it did not want her to go, a sudden storm caused the trip to be cancelled. The disappointment of the other sister is never discussed. Instead, Sr. Faustina writes that she spent the day thanking God for having kept her at home and records the spiritual consolations she received as a result. The narrative is noteworthy because the desires and feelings of the companion instantly fade into the background, while the event is interpreted entirely through its significance for Sr. Faustina's own spiritual life.
The same pattern appears repeatedly throughout the Diary. Human conversation is exhausting. Silence is preferable to explanation. Family visits become occasions to seek solitude. Other people are frequently viewed through broad categories such as "creatures," "souls," or "sinners" rather than as individuals with distinct personalities and concerns.
The issue is not that Sr. Faustina lacked concern for mankind. The Diary contains abundant evidence of concern for humanity in general. Rather, the difficulty lies in the virtual absence of ordinary interpersonal affection. The people immediately around her often appear less as persons to be known and loved than as interruptions to recollection, occasions for suffering, or creatures from whom one must detach oneself.
This recurring pattern helps explain many other features of the Diary, including Sr. Faustina's discomfort with conversation, her preference for silence, her reluctance to explain herself to others, and her tendency to retreat into her interior life. What is presented as spiritual detachment often seems to extend beyond worldly attachments and into detachment from the people themselves.