Lest You Remain

Promoter of the call of the laity to holiness Fr. Stanislaus Papczy<ski also perceived helping others in attaining salvation and getting involved in the work of the Church as his particular mission. He shows this praise of pastors, who dedicate themselves to the spiritual formation of the faith- ful: “O how admirable are Christ’s helpers, who only because of His love, sincerely and carefully place before the children,[…] all that is necessary for salvation, for leading a life in a Christian manner,[…] No work of mercy is greater and more fruit- ful” ( The Mystical Temple of God ). He wished to belong to such helpers of Christ. For this reason, while staying as chaplain with the Karski family, he wrote a book entitled Templum Dei mysticum [The Mystical Temple of God], which may be dar- ingly called a handbook for striving for holiness, meant also for the laity. The book was to serve one’s growth in the understanding of self and God, discovering the sure road to salvation, and the Christian model of perfection (cf. The Mystical Temple of God ). In the opinion of historians, Fr. Papczy<ski ’s treatise was—if not the first— then certainly one of very first Polish works promoting the vocation of laity to holi- ness. This work was so important in its time that it underwent several reprints. In The Mystical Temple of God Fr. Papczy<ski expressed his firm conviction that lay people, and not only religious and priests, are called for holiness, and he also wanted to remind his contemporaries of this basic truth. He wrote: “Man created by God and consecrated to Him through the sacrament of baptism, is His Mystical Temple. […] Therefore, let everyone give greater attention to the magnificence of his primordial state and acknowledge in himself the image of the Holy Trinity worthy of honor and at the same time striving to this, so as to possess the honor of the divine likeness by the nobility of conduct and the exercise of virtues […] that in the mean- time, when it becomes manifest, who he is, he showed himself like to the One who wondrously formed him in His likeness in the first Adam, and yet more wondrously reformed in the second.” The life of every person, if he offers all his thoughts and deeds to God on the altar of his heart and follows the Gospels teachings, will become a gradual path in the imitation of Christ, so as to participate in His glory. “ You, the Christians, “are the Temple of the living God” (2 Cor 6:15). What a glory is yours! What a dignity!” This universal vision of the call to holiness should be connected to the delight of the Founder of the Marian Community in the mystery of the Immaculate Conception—the grace of a new creation, which is meant for every per- son redeemed by Christ; as well as Mary’s personal holiness, whom he called the first Shrine built in the center of the Church and inhabited by God (Inspectio cordis). Fr. Papczy<ski desired that all people would attain full blessedness, because of this he proposed a road to holiness for all believers, while also imploring salvation of the deceased. In this way he became the promoter of the call to holiness for the laity— an idea definitely seized in our times by the Second Vatican Council. L EST Y OU R EMAIN W ITHOUT W ORK IN THE V INEYARD OF THE L ORD 86