Lest You Remain

It is worth mentioning here that Fr. Papczy<ski ’s longtime field of apostolic activity gathered many lay people into various confraternities. Pursuing the history of Fr. Stanislaus’s engagement in this type of pastoral work, it is not hard to see that it permeated the whole priestly vocation of the Founder of the Marian Community. As a Piarist, during 1663-1667, Fr. Papczy<ski was the promoter of the Confraternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Grace at the Piarist Church in Warsaw, which according to some he himself founded, and according to the opinion of others he greatly popu- larized. In 1671, that is the moment of his “transition” in his religious vocation, for half a year he cared for the archconfraternity of the Immaculate Conception of the B.V.M. allied to St. Jacob’s Church in the Kazimierz a borough of Krakow. As Founder of the Marian Order, he obtained from the Holy See in 1681—that is prior to the pontifical approval of his institute—a document, which was understood (at least the papal breve was so interpreted by Bishop Stefan Wierzbowski, and after him by our Founder and consecutive generations of the Marians), as permission to estab- lish confraternities of the faithful allied to the Marian churches, which Fr. Stanislaus himself defined as the confraternity of the Immaculate Conception assisting the faith- ful departed. In promoting the idea of the confraternity he followed the accepted prac- tice of his times: aside from seeing it as a form of personal sanctification for the laity, he perceived it as, maybe, a unique opportunity for the lay faithful to spiritually influ- ence others and thus to include them in to the apostolate of the Church. Father Founder Only in line with the above narrative can the designation “Father Founder” appear to be the most complete description of the spiritual identity of the Venerable Servant of God Stanislaus Papczy<ski . For he received from God a most singular gift—the gift of founding a new religious community. The charism of founding belongs to the rare gifts of the Holy Spirit, through which He builds the Church and makes her capable of reading the signs of the times and to answer to its challenges. From the beginning Fr. Stanislaus recognized—in accord with the explicit inspira- tions of the Holy Spirit—that the most important mission for founding his institute was to advance the honor of the Immaculate Conception of the B.V.M. Most probably, the idea of founding a religious community came to fruition for him in 1670. The very first time that he mentioned his desire to start such a work was in the presence of Fr. Micha = Kraus, the Piarists Vicar Provincial, just after receiving permission to leave the Order on December 11, 1670, while making the so-called Oblatio : “In the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ Crucified. Amen. I, Stanislaus of Jesus Mary Papczy < ski, in the flesh, son of Thomas of Podegrodzie, of the diocese of Cracow, being 40 years of age, offer and consecrate to God the Father Almighty, the Son, and Biography of Fr. Stanislaus Papczy < ski 87