Lest You Remain

A Marian Helper is a person who put his/her trust in the Divine love and strives to live by it in the everyday life, mindful of the words of St. John, the Apostle: “We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.”(1 Jn 4:16). Father Stanislaus’s example demonstrates that “persevering in love,” means to serve our neighbor with concern for their salvation. In other words, it means being deeply rooted in love, which can withstand the tragedy of death. Only a person fascinated by Divine love can successfully oppose the evil of this world, perseveringly over- come all life’s difficulties and zealously bring hope to the needy. Father Stanislaus is for a Marian Helper an inspiration for caring about one’s Christian identity, the essence of which is love received from God and passed on to people. It is the matter of being able to say about oneself: I love therefore I am . This is well explained by words of St. Gregory of Nissa: “Our Creator gave us love as and expression of our human face.” Thus, it is impossible to accept the gift of life and not to live by love at the same time, for “everyone is the same as his/her love is” (St. Augustine). Fascination with Divine love allows us to understand ourselves, our place in the world and it also allows us to meet others, which will be the beginning of heav- en or dwelling in love . 5. Captivated by Mary Immaculate At the beginning of the Congregation of Marians we see the marvelous actions of the Holy Spirit, who, while calling to life a new religious community, also “points” to the person Immaculately Conceived. Can this analogy tell us some- thing: “conceiving” of the order in Fr. Stanislaus’s mind and the immaculate con- ception of Mary? It seems that it can. First, it demonstrates that the gift of a new community and the gift of the Immaculate Conception of Mary are the fruits of a gratuitous act of God, who showers them on the Church. Next, the mysterious work of the Holy Spirit reveals the truth that the Immaculate Conception of Mary is to be the inspiration of the new religious com- munity in terms of the essence of its religious vocation (it is a gratuitous gift, a pro- gram to accomplish, directions for the mission in the Church), as well as the form of its fulfillment (in imitation of Mary Immaculate). Pointing to the mystery of the Immaculate Conception as the inspiration justifies in some way the lack of necessi- ty for various outward signs, which would express the identity of the new commu- nity. The most important of those signs is the white habit—the symbol of unmarred Fr. St. Papczy < ski as the Inspiration for the Marian Helpers 219