Lumen 2018

the Holy Apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, for St. Stanislaus, Bishop and Martyr, St. Stanislaus Kostka, and many other saints. He wrote hymns in their honor, which he ordered to be sung in the churches of his Congregation on the feast days dedicated to those saints. He delivered special sermons and laudatory orations, both at Marian churches and during missions in other churches. 47 While Fr. Stanislaus lived such a saintly life in the monastery at the Cenacle and proclaimed God’s glory in other parishes, the Kingdom of Poland was in a state of upheaval. During King Augustus II’s Reign On June 17, 1696, King John III Sobieski died. The period of interregnum that followed was a time of ugly quarrels between the magnate families, intrigues, and confederations. Out of this confu- sion, a candidate to the Polish throne emerged. It was Frederick Au- gustus of the house of Wettin, Elector of Saxony, supported by Muscovy and Germany as well as the Elector of Brandenburg. Dur- ing the spring election of 1697, the majority of the Polish nobility voted for the French Prince Louis de Bourbon Conti, but Frederick Augustus helped his fate by entering Malopolska [Little Poland] at the head of his army. He seized Cracow, where Stanislaus Casimir Dambski, Bishop of Kujawy, pronounced him King of Poland on June 27, 1697, and crowned him on September 15, 1697, under the name of Augustus II. 48 It was a pitiful choice, just as pitiful as the morale of Polish society. By making such a choice, the people demonstrated how poorly they understood the country’s situation at that time. When Augustus II was on his way back to Warsaw from the coro- nation in Cracow, he stopped at Nowa Jerozolima. Father Stanislaus was among the many noblemen and religious who came to pay hom- age to the new king. Allowed to kiss the king’s hand, he greeted the monarch with a beautiful oration and then strictly admonished him. 375 The End of Father Stanislaus’s Life