Ad Honorem Immaculatae Conceptionis Mariae Oblatio

26 that the Most Holy Mother of God Mary was conceived without ori- ginal stain and I promise to propagate and defend her honor even by suffering the loss of my life. Thus, may help me God and this Holy Gospel of God. 2 Oblatio as the very first form of the Marian profession of vows While reading the above text, one cannot resist the impression that this is simply Fr. Stanislaus Papczyński’s religious profession of vows in the So- ciety of Marian Fathers. As a matter of fact, all three Evangelical Coun- sels, namely: chastity, poverty, and obedience are mentioned there. It also speaks about to of a total and irrevocable offering made of oneself. In fact, the text represents a religious consecration. We have many reasons to be- lieve that Fr. Stanislaus himself regarded this act in the same way. Along with the sublime and solemn form of this text, also its title, given to it by its author, points to the text’s character of a consecration. It is an Oblatio , meaning – an offering of oneself. The term oblation signified making an offering. It was particularly related to the offering made during the Holy Mass. It was also used in religious life to indicate to an act, by which a reli- gious was offering himself to the service of God. Even today many religious institutes bear the name of the Oblates of a Saint who is a Patron of the religious family. The following circumstances also attest to the fundamental significance of the Oblatio : – Fr. Stanislaus Papczyński performs this act out of his own free will and under the influence of a Divine inspiration, as he states in his Fundatio Domus Recollectionis : “Near the time of the dispensation [from the vows] the Divine Majesty suggested, that while [I was to be released] from these, in the same act I would freely bind myself to God by others; and I did it by an offering fetched out of my heart and made publicly, although in a lower voice.” 3 ; 2 Note of the translator: The text of the Oblatio is translated here into English not from the Polish translation made by the author of the article, but from the original Latin, as it appears in: S. Papczyński, Scripta Historica , Fontes Historiae Marianorum 8, pp. 29-30. The same applies to the translation of other documents quoted in this article. It is to be noted that the original Latin texts quoted by the author are given in the respective footnotes of the Polish edition of the arti- cle. In the present English edition these Latin original texts have been omitted in the footnotes. 3 Ibid., p. 82.