Father Casimir Wyszynski

Father Wyszyński also undertook efforts to establish a per- manent Marian house in Rome which could facilitate watching over the matters of the Order. An opportunity occurred to pur- chase a chapel in which a miraculous image of Mary was vener- ated; the Blessed Mother’s scarred face was reminiscent of the icon of Our Lady of Częstochowa. Father Casimir took up resi- dence near this chapel and busied himself with accepting candi- dates to the Order. On July 9, 1731, he came very close to signing a contract for the perpetual lease of the Madonna die Cerchi Chapel with Marquis Christopher Cenci, its owner. However, his superiors in Poland did not consent to the transaction: first, be- cause of the great expense involved, and second, because the chapel’s location in a damp, malaria-infested location would be harmful to health. Candidates to the Order could not bear staying there, and it turned out that Father Casimir himself contracted malaria, which ever since then continued to ruin his health. Un- fortunately, no other site for a Marian monastery was found in Rome at that time. Father Casimir dedicatedmuch time to prayer, visiting Roman churches and meditating on the Scriptures. He was in the habit of reading the whole of the Scriptures in the course of an entire year. As he tended to the matters of his Congregation, he also be- came acquainted with the lives of other religious communities. He also undertook pastoral work among the shepherds in the vicinity of Rome. He taught them the truths of the Faith, prepared them for the sacraments, and celebrated the Eucharist. In addi- tion, his apostolic work involved the preparation and publication in 1733 of his reflections on the life of St. Ignatius of Antioch, whose devotion to Christ was sealed by his martyrdom in Rome. The bookwas entitled Vestigiaæternæ felicitatis or Traces of Eter- nal Happiness . During this time in the Eternal City, from 1731 to 1733, the Servant of God Casimir studied books onMarian topics and even copied one of them entirely. In 1749, he translated this book and having first adapted it to the Rule of the Ten Virtues , published it under the title of Morning Star . In order to more fruitfully pro- 25 The Servant of Mary Immaculate