187 Mark Baron, MIC U.S.A., Washington D.C., House Superior and Novice Master The fruit of the beatifi cation for the members of the Washington, DC house has been a unifying clarity of our identity as Marians. I would like to spend the next few minutes explaining this statement. Currently, the majority of men, including myself, joined our community based either on a strong devotion to Our Lady or Divine Mercy or both. Most people, then, are not motivated to join our community out of a specifi c devotion to either Blessed Stanislaus or Blessed George. When people go through the novitiate and learn about our history and charism it seems that they may experience them in a discreet manner. There is no sense of true clarity regarding who we are and what we do now and where we have come from. The problem is that we do not know how to integrate our history, charism, apostolate into a solid identity. We do not know how to interiorize it so as to make it our own and thereby live by it. The beatifi cation of our Founder—with all of the preparation and thanksgiving that it involved—has made the person of Fr. Stanislaus and his spirituality come alive for each of us. Through this new encounter, we have had the fruit of experiencing 2 points of clarity: the fi rst one involving Blessed George and the second involving the Divine Mercy. Concerning Blessed George, we have seen that Blessed Stanislaus was fi lled with a great apostolic spirit and it was emphasized to us that his initial intention was to establish an apostolic community. This helped us to see how the renovations of Blessed George complete and fulfi ll that original vision of our founder. In this way, we can see how George and Stanislaus share a similar heart and are not, therefore, meant to be “pitted one against the other.” Regarding the Divine Mercy, it seems that we are seeing this great gift given to us as the interpretive key to our overall identity. What is meant by this? If we look at some of the essential characteristics of Blessed Stanislaus’s spirituality and charism—dependence on Divine Providence, devotion to the Immaculate Conception, praying for the souls in purgatory, assisting pastors—we can
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjI2Mw==