May 18 SAINT STANISLAUS OF JESUS AND MARY PAPCZYŃSKI, FATHER AND FOUNDER OF THE CONGREGATION Solemnity Saint Stanislaus of Jesus and Mary was born in 1631, in the village of Podegrodzie, Poland. After finishing his courses at Jesuit and Piarist Colleges in 1654, he entered the Piarist Institute, professed his religious vows, and was ordained a priest in 1661. He became famous as a gifted educator of youth, an illustrious preacher, a wise spiritual director, and also as an author of works on spirituality and rhetoric. Father Stanislaus worked with great zeal to encourage religious and laity to strive for greater holiness. He left the Piarists in 1670 and founded the Congregation of Marian Fathers under the patronage of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary to promote devotion to the mystery of the Immaculate Conception, as well as to offer intercession for the souls in Purgatory, and to conduct pastoral work, especially among the poor. He was the first to found in the Church a male Order dedicated to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, nearly two centuries before the proclamation of this dogma. He died in the opinion of holiness on September 17, 1701, in Góra Kalwaria near Warsaw. His remains were laid to rest at the Church of the Cenacle of Our Lord. On June 13, 1992, Pope John Paul II confirmed the heroic virtue of Fr. Stanislaus Papczyński. By his Apostolic Letter of September 12, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI approved the beatification of Fr. Stanislaus, which was solemnly performed at the Marian Shrine in Lichen, Poland, by the papal legate, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, SDB, Secretary of State, acting on his behalf. Father Founder was subsequently canonized in Rome at St. Peter’s on June 5, 2016, by Pope Francis during the extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy.
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