Ad Honorem Immaculatae Conceptionis Mariae Oblatio

49 unfamiliarity with the Polish language among non-Poles); the great time, and sometimes geographical, distance that caused a sense of alienation and a lack of understanding; the lack of a deeper interest in the Congregation’s past and an unsympathetic view toward the need for historical research in general. The main stream of the community’s life in 1960’s focused on other events: the work and the resolutions of Vatican II, the post-Vatican liturgical reforms which were of vital importance to all, the renewal of re- ligious life initiated by the Council and the ensuing necessity for editing the Constitutions, debates about the Congregation’s character, and lastly, the making of a difficult decision about site the of the new General House (whether in or outside Rome). Such were the topics of the Marian Fathers’ periodicals of the time as well as what the spiritual sons of Fr. Stanislaus Papczyński were then living. 33 Against a multitude of significant and interesting matters, such a small and humble event as the discovery of the text of the Oblatio paled com- pletely. Perusing the Marian’s magazines of the day, one gets the impres- sion that probably nobody realized what the Oblatio exactly represented for the Marian community. However, Marians involved in research on the Congregation’s history and heritage were aware of the lack of a wider in- terest in these matters. Characteristic of this is Fr. Krzyżanowski’s state- ment of 1968: “Ten years went by since the day when I started studying the person of the Servant of God Stanislaus Papczyński and the history of our community’s beginnings. An archival quest completed during these years uncovered an array of documents and written works that enrich our knowledge about our Founder and shed light on the character, guiding idea and original spirit that enlivened our Congregation. Some research results and conclusions had been already prepared and presented in 1963 [...]. The fact that they did not have any greater reverberation among us could prob- ably be explained by the widespread lack of time and opportunity to get acquainted with them.” 34 The narrow circle of interested people and the even more narrow cir- cle of researchers of the history of the Marians, who were incidentally assigned to other tasks as a rule and only occupied themselves with the Congregation’s history on the side, must have naturally had an impact on the methodology and results of this research. Naturally, this pioneer and 33 See Marianus and Immaculata from 1963-1969. 34 K. Krzyżanowski, 0 powrót do idei przewodniej Zgromadzenia Marianów, “ Immaculata” 6(1969) No 1, 26.