Chapter I The Aim of the Community and Admission to It 1. Since no community can exist except under the guidance of laws, nor would it be possible for one to live without law in this earthly existence: because of this, you, who have been gathered together in one society and enclosed in monasteries under the governance of one Superior, will strive to observe these very few Statutes (over and above the Rule of St. Augustine),1 for your inner peace and the security of your consciences. 2. First, consider diligently and assiduously what the aim of your Congregation is. [It is] the one that all the Orders have in common with you: the greater increase of God’s glory, and care for your own salvation combined with serious striving for perfection. What does it profit a man, teaches the Savior, “if he gains the whole world, but suffers the loss of his own soul” (cf. Mt 16:26)? But lest you remain without work in the Vineyard of the Lord (cf. Mt 20:31), to the utmost of strength you will promote devotion to the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mother of God, and with utmost zeal, piety and fervor assist the souls of the faithful departed subjected to 1 This reference to the Rule of St. Augustine is a real mystery to us. The fact is that the 1687 edition of the Rule of Life did not contain this parenthetical reference. Was it one of the “corrections” made by Cardinal Colloredo? Probably not, because he said that it was enough for the Marians to observe the Rule of Life (cf. Informative Preface, no. 4). Father Stanislaus himself in no other document or writing speaks about the Rule of St. Augustine as a possible or actual Rule binding the Marians. But we cannot exclude the possibility that he decided to adopt this Rule (at least as a spiritual orientation) towards the year 1697, as he was preparing the publication of his own Rule of Life, in order to strengthen the position of his Institute (which was still being accused of insufficient ecclesiastical approval). This kind of “spiritual” (and not juridical) adoption of the Rule of St. Augustine (which was one of the four Rules approved by the Holy See since 1215) did not bring with itself Pontifical approval of the Marians, but at least it gave them the semblance of an Institute firmly rooted in the sound religious tradition of the Church.
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