MARIANS IN 1670-1788 30 greater love since he also suffered and knew compassion.”9 João Teixeira also believed that God had healed young John because of his destiny “to found in the Church of God the Order of His Most Blessed Mother.”10 On the other hand, Georgio Navikevicius claimed that Papczyński didn’t try to explain or justify the “Lviv Cross” to himself: neither the illness nor the healing, but once healed, he dedicated his entire life to the Most Blessed Mother of God.11 After learning of his son’s severe fate and fearing contagion, John’s father, Jan, brought him back from Lviv to their home in Podegrodzie in mid-May 1650. However, this man who […] gratis victum non dabat (did not give food away for free)12 — as Casimir Wyszyński remarked — decided that his son would tend sheep. Being a shepherd was not an honorable occupation, especially since John Papczyński was already a well-traveled and relatively educated sixteen-year-old then. João Teixeira noted, “[Papczyński] found himself condemned by his father to guard the sheep on the mountainside as some punishment and scorn. His father, discouraged by many adversities, grew reluctant to support him.”13 This event may seem trivial, but for young John Papczyński, the new occupation and the solitude with God and nature proved crucial in his life. It also became a true lesson in humility for him. In everything, he saw the will of God, as evidenced by his confession in the Secrets of Conscience, which he wrote immediately after recounting the “Lviv Cross.” Praising God and thanking Divine Providence for guiding him through his parents, he wrote: “Thus do I thank God, that by His Will, I was then required by my parents to pasture sheep (I dare to admit this with a peaceful conscience), since while I was in the pastures amid the flock, I kept my conscience pure and holy! O Lord! I humbly ask this of You, that this, the Providence of Your Majesty — which I expect [to guide me] in the future and in which I trust — guide me until the end of my life, that You may be praised in all of my deeds, thoughts, and words. Amen.”14 9 Wyszyński, Stróż, p. 62. 10 Teixeira, n. 25. 11 Georgio A. Navikevicius, Stanislao di Gesù Maria Papczyński (1631-1701). Scolopio e Fondatore della Congregazione dei Padri Mariani, Roma 1960, p. 63, [afterwards: Navikevicius]. 12 Introduction to Secrets of Conscience, in: Selected Writings, p. 853. 13 Teixeira, n. 30. 14 S. Papczyński, Secrets of Conscience, in: Selected Writings, pp. 853-854.
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