Saw Jesus at a dance
Helena Kowalska was born in Głogowiec, central Poland, in 1905, the third of 10 children in a peasant family which was poor and devout. When she attended Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament aged seven, she felt a religious calling. She wanted to enter a convent at 16 but her parents would not let her and she went to work as a housekeeper instead to support the family.
In 1924, when she was 19, she attended a dance with her sister, during which she saw an image of the suffering Jesus. She said that Jesus later instructed her to go to Warsaw and join a convent.
