Ad Honorem Immaculatae Conceptionis Mariae Oblatio

47 it reduced the importance of the act to a mere manifestation of personal desires, intentions, and convictions. From the Founder’s writings, it follows that he regarded the Oblatio as the profession of religious vows in a new institute, and that it was just as important to him as his profession made in the Piarists. 28 Father Papczyński knew that he was changing the Congregation, but not his religious status. The outward sign of his perseverance in the religious vocation, while chang- ing the Congregation, had to be to exchange his black habit for a white one, but of the same design. Father Papczyński argued this matter versus the Piarists in court, where various ecclesial authorities gave their opinion. 29 Ultimately the matter was settled in favor of Fr. Stanislaus by the Nuncio and the Bishop of Poznan who expressed the consent for him to wear the white habit. 30 This consent was, in fact, the recognition of Fr. Stanislaus as a religious with full rights since he was allowed to wear the habit of a new Congregation. This was also at least some indirect acceptance of his Obla- tio as the profession of religious vows. Through an attentive reading of the Founder’s reminiscences –our Congregation’s first history – one cannot help but realize that Fr. Stanislaus did not see his Oblatio as an exclusively internal act, but as a true entrance on a new path of life with all of the pos- sible consequences, even of an external nature. Father Founder succeeded in convincing the Nuncio and winning over the Bishop of Poznan. He did not suspect that members of the Congregation that he had founded would endeavor to undermine his efforts and convictions and to claim, contra- dicting him, that he was a diocesan priest at that time. 31 Third factor: the background or the narrow circle of interested people and students The Marians have always been a small and humble community, even threatened by extinction at times. They never produced any figure of such prominence as to enter into the history of the Church or the world. Nor has the Congregation as a whole ever grown to such greatness of significance 28 In his Foundation of the House of Recollections , No. 3, Fr. Stanislaus wrote: “Divine Maj- esty suggested to me, that while I was going to be released from these, in the same act I would bind myself freely to God by other vows, which I did by offering myself taken out of my heart, and made publicly, although in a rather quiet voice,” in Historical Writing of Blessed Stanislaus Papczyński , Stockbridge, MA 2007, p. 63. 29 Posnaniensis , 216-233. 30 See S. Papczyński, Foundation of the House of Recollections, No. 7, p. 65, 31 See voices in the discussion published in MIC Information (1/20040, No. 42, 17-22.