Lumen 2018

ticum (The Mystical Temple of God) and Norma Vitae (the Rule of Life). The first one is a textbook on asceticism, one of the first of its kind in the Church, written primarily for laity. The book is one of the most prominent pieces among his writings. It is about 240 pages long (printed in a small format). It had three editions: the first one in Cra- cow in 1675, the second one, after the author’s death, in 1741 in Warsaw, and the third one in 1747. It is a work on spirituality which testifies to Fr. Papczynski’s great familiarity with the interior life. It is striking for its vivid treatment of the theological foundations of the Christian life and of the duty to strive for perfection. Based on sources such as Revelation and the works of Church writers, especially those by the Doctors of the Church, Fr. Stanislaus convincingly presents the ideal of Christian perfection, the means to achieve it, and the stages of its development. The conference-like style of the work tes- tifies to the fact that Papczynski wrote it also with the needs of preach- ers in mind. It could also serve a pious reader as assistance in meditation. In order to appeal to the reader’s imagination, the author presents the human soul as the Temple of God, in which various litur- gical objects and functions have their counterparts in the spiritual life of the Christian. Through numerous allegorical images, Papczynski discusses man’s spiritual faculties, the sources of grace, and assistance in obtaining the goal of the Christian life, i.e., achieving unity with God. The examples drawn from the Holy Scriptures, from the history of the Church, from general history, and from the lives of the saints were to assist in the understanding of the content. TemplumDei Mys- ticum is the only surviving work by Stanislaus Papczynski, which treats broadly the issues associated with the interior life. Norma Vitae is a religious rule. 38 In its nine chapters, Fr. Pa- pczynski lists the rules of life for the future Marians. We find there the basic ideas of the religious institute which Fr. Papczynski in- tended to found. He prepared the first version of the Rule around 1672. As he was writing it, he was influenced by such sources as documents issued by Pope Clement VIII and by the Piarist Consti- 255 Foundation of a New Religious Order