17 roused by God Himself (a Deo provectam).”3 He regarded it as a transition from this world to the dimension of divine life, as the election of what he himself called the earthly paradise and the port of salvation. In the reflections delivered to the Piarists in Góra Kalwaria, he emphasized that every vocation to the religious life was awakened by the Holy Spirit: “You, on the other hand, have been richly endowed by the grace of the Holy Spirit with such a great gift and light.”4 This statement is the starting point for an eschatological interpretation of a religious vocation as “a haven towards which one makes his way from the very dangerous sea of the world and in which he evades the insurmountable waves of great storms.”5 The Holy Spirit leads a Christian to this harbor, this haven: “You also have gone out from your native region to the place indicated to you by the finger of the Holy Spirit through a religious vocation.”6 The aforesaid Secreta conscientiae, today considered as lost, also contained accounts of Divine Providence’s numerous miraculous interventions in the life of Stanislaus Papczyński. Their brief account may be found in Vita Fundatoris, written by Father Casimir Wyszyński on the basis of his reading the Founder’s notes and testimonies of eyewitnesses or those who had been in contact with them. Among other things, we learn from his account about God’s extraordinary intervention of saving Stanislaus as an unborn child [in his mother’s womb]. While his mother Zofia was crossing the Dunajec River on her way back home from the market in Sącz, the arrival of a sudden storm caused waves to rise on the river, placing them both in great danger. All Zofia could do was to appeal for help from Heaven, and inexplicably her boat immediately reached the shore. When Stanislaus was in his teens, he went to Lvov in order to continue his education. Refused admission to the Jesuit school, he tutored the sons of some Lvov townspeople. In the 3 St. Papczyński, Foundation of the House of Recollections, in: Selected Writings, Warszawa -Stockbridge, 2021, p. 901. 4 St. Papczyński, Examination of the Heart, in: Selected Writings, Warszawa-Stockbridge, 2021, p. 487. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid, p. 142.
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