Ad Honorem Immaculatae Conceptionis Mariae Oblatio

8 symposium conferences other papers that interpreted in a broader context the meaning of the act of the Oblatio and religious consecration. These two issues are clearly connected with one another, creating a point of reference for the religious identity in the spirituality of the Marian Fathers. Conse- quently, the title “ Oblatio and Consecration” was chosen for the planned symposium. For the Oblatio made by St. Stanislaus of Jesus and Mary is an act of consecration, constituting a turning point: it closes his Piarist period and also opens the stage of his new vocation, that is, the founding of the Congregation of the Marian Fathers. By making the act of the Oblatio , our Saint becomes the Father and Founder of a new institute and publicly declares the founding charism, already imprinted on his heart by the Holy Spirit. A few years later, he personally recalled these moments and de- scribed his experiences in the work entitled Fundatio Domus Recollectionis (Founding of the House of Recollection). Recognizing the Oblatio as the beginning of a new religious community is tantamount to acknowledging religious consecration as the most important element of the religious iden- tity in the spirituality of the Marian Fathers: it means that someone is rec- ognized as a Marian religious and that the origin of his religious life began with his consecration. It is also true, even if sometime later – for various reasons judged necessary – this consecrated person was unable to live in the community. Such are the theological and spiritual effects of assigning the primacy to religious consecration. In addition to the symposium papers the book also has an Appendix containing a collection of testimonies of the youngest members of the Congregation of Marian Fathers from our Vietnamese mission, entitled “Charism in the Experience of the Vietnamese Community of the Marian Fathers”. These touching testimonies of the youngest members of the Con- gregation of Marian Fathers in Vietnam are preceded by an Introduction entitled Beginning of the Marian Congregation in Vietnam and Testimo- nies of the First Vietnamese Marians. Its author – Fr. Bogusław Gil, MIC, S.T.D. –is a Marian missionary who, after many years of missionary service in Africa (Cameroon and Rwanda), organized a mission in Vietnam. Ini- tially, he was there alone for two years, then two other Marian missionaries (one from Slovakia, the other from the USA) joined him. The Introduction is not only an opening that helps us to understand the testimonies of the first Vietnamese Marians, but also a brief history of the growth of the Mar- ian Fathers’ first religious community in Vietnam. The 350th Anniversary of the Origin of the Congregation of Marian Fa- thers is a providential occasion to reflect more closely on the spiritual and