Ad Honorem Immaculatae Conceptionis Mariae Oblatio

15 tradition of the Congregation, but he also drew attention to the need for a contextual interpretation of the historical source materials. The second thesis of C. Krzyżanowski, MIC concerns St. Stanislaus’s departure from the Piarists and his founding the Congregation of Marian Fathers. Essentially, it expresses the conviction that he proffered in his in- troduction to the Oblatio : “We don’t know when this new religious voca- tion appeared. One thing is certain: it was neither the singular reason nor one of many reasons for his departure from the Piarists. In a word: Father Papczyński left the Piarist Order not to found the Marian Order, but he founded the Marian Order because he left the Piarists.” 6 Father Krzyżanowski had offered the same conviction in the Positio , as the Postulator General, writing that the first biographer of our holy Fa- ther Founder, Mansueto Leporini, had wrongly described the reasons for the former’s departure from the Piarist Order. 7 After all, Leporini does not comment on this subject, but he describes the manner, in which God led St. Stanislaus to become the founder of a new congregation. 8 C. Krzyżanowski’s convictions are linked to one of St. Stanislaus’s work, written probably in 1671 and entitled Apologia pro egressu e Scholis Piis [Apology for the departure from the Institute of the Pious Schools]. How- ever, the Saint wrote this Apology polemically, strictly conforming to the art of rhetoric in regard to apologetic writings (after all, he was a professor of rhetoric) and opposing the erroneous opinions about him that appeared after he left the Piarists. In fact, he gives four motives there, namely: hostil- ity, the relaxed observance of the old religious rule, love, and impediments in the use of innate abilities. Already in the first sentence, he states the 6 C. Krzyżanowski included this sentence in the introduction to Oblatio ( Pisma zebrane , p. 1258; Positio , p. 211). 7 Cf. Positio , p. 211. 8 It is worth quoting here the excerpt from St. Stanislaus’s biography, written four years after his death: “§31. Seeing his [Fr. Stanislaus’s] patience and work undertaken for the glory of God and His Most Gracious Mother, by applying various stimuli through inspirations and divine rev- elations that were recognized by confessors and theologians as true and unfailingly known, the merciful Lord called him to establish a new Institute in His Church, in order to increase devotion to the Immaculate Conception, to assist parish priests in pastoral work and to bring succor to the deceased. § 32. Therefore, obedient to the voice of God and his own commendable readiness, he changed his first vocation, and on Wednesday, in the octave of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on December 11, 1670, Father Michael of the Visitation released him – with the consent of the Supreme Vicar of Christ, Clement X and the Superior General – from his simple vows and oaths of perseverance. At that time, he offered himself anew in his Institute to God and His Mother, having received the blessing from the aforementioned father ‘May God strengthen what he has done in you,’” Positio , pp. 630-640.