109 Mission Our fi rst apostolate is always to give witness to our religious, Marian life in total dedication to God and to the confreres, according to the plan that God planted in our Founder, which we can learn and execute ever more perfectly with the passing of time. “The spiritual life must therefore have fi rst place in the program of the Families of consecrated life, in such a way that every Institute and community will be a school of true evangelical spirituality. Apostolic fruitfulness, generosity in love of the poor, and the ability to attract vocations among the younger generation depend on this priority and its growth in personal and communal commitment.”21 Aside from giving witness that directly fl ows out of our lives, Fr. Papczyński instructs us to provide assistance to pastors.22 During the lifetime of our Founder, this primarily meant preaching missions, substituting for pastors in their offi ce, assisting them by hearing confessions, and through teaching and leading worship in non-Marian parishes. Today, we ought to understand this directive as an invitation to work in those areas of the Church which are not suffi ciently cultivated or which are completely “uncultivated” for some reason. We ought to work in those areas as Marians, aware of our identity, and transmitting our charism and our specifi city. The main tasks of a pastor and of the Church are: proclaiming the Word of God, administering the sacraments, building up a community, and conducting the works of mercy. Carrying out each of these works, we will “imprint” them with the Immaculate Conception, with prayer for the dead, with an intent gaze toward heaven, and with the truth about God’s love, about human dignity, and about the vocation to becoming a new creation. This vocation involves a call to holiness on earth and to rejoice with God in heaven. In his teachings (homilies, catechesis, symposia, publications, radio and TV appearances, Websites, etc.), the Marian of tomorrow will always point to God as the source of love, of grace and of every form of life. He will refer to the paschal mystery of Christ as the 21 VC, 93. “…fraternal communion, as such, is already an apostolate; in other words, it contributes directly to the work of evangelization,” Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, Fraternal Life in Community, «Congregavit nos in unum Christi amor», Vatican, Feb. 2, 1994, 54. 22 Already in his Norma vitae, Fr. Papczyński stated: “Since the contemplative life is not binding you so strictly, although you are founded in the eremitical status, those gifted with such talents will not be prevented from humbly helping pastors in their church work,” NV, I, 3. We also know that already towards the end of the 17th century, the Marians were conducting extensive missionary and pastoral works outside of their monasteries and that in his solemn profession of vows made before the Nuncio, Francis Pignatelli, our Blessed Founder called the Congregation “the Order of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, a Polish Congregation Assisting the Departed and Pastors.” Bł. Stanisław Papczyński, Profesja ślubów uroczystych, in: same author, Pisma zebrane, p. 1503.
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