198 which he once composed. Here, he is the father of the poor. Rwanda is a country of the poor and the people fi nd in the person of our Founder, Christ Himself who cares for them, gives them signs and miracles to confi rm the presence of the Kingdom of God. In the person of our Father Founder, people see the power of Christ. Their faith in this power and in Fr. Founder’s spiritual protection is great and full of simplicity. Piotr Fedorowicz, MIC Italy, Rome, General Treasurer My encounters with Fr. Stanislaus started early in my life because, as a little boy, I had the joy of being educated at Wileńska Street in Warsaw, under the wing of the Marians. Concerned priests (Frs. Łada, Minota, Meller)—the acolytes’ educators—often took us to Marianki, to Fr. Founder’s tomb. We made these pilgrimages at least twice a year (in May and in September). In later years, I also visited Marianki and Fr. Stanislaus’s place of eternal rest as a seminarian. I used to go there to lend a hand in preparing for the solemnities. I rejoiced seeing more and more people arriving, for whom the memory of Fr. Papczyński was always alive, although so many years had gone by since the moment of his departure to the “house of the Father.” At that time, I did not know his writings, or his theological wisdom; but I knew what he was to us: our Founder; and what he was for his time: an illustrious preacher and theologian and a great confessor of the faithful. With the passing of time, my encounters with Fr. Stanislaus begun to happen on a different “level.” During the beatifi cation ceremony, Father General put a question to us: why has the gift of his beatifi cation became our destiny, the present generation of the Marians? This question is still standing; it is our task, an invitation for a deeper refl ection, for study and fi nally for our personal conversion. I had the great privilege of being directly involved in the preparations for the beatifi cation celebrations. I would like to express my gratitude to Father General for having invited me to be part of this group of people under the direction of Fr. Andrzej Pakuła, MIC. I believe that a great help in the spiritual preparation, for me, as for many others, was the book entitled Lest you remain without work in the Vineyard of the Lord, prepared by Fr. Pakuła and his team. Another one, And that Your Fruit Would Remain, came next. In those two books, which were translated at a high cost, (intellectually and monetarily) into the main languages used in our Congregation, we found, as we all recall, a treasure chest of information about Fr. Stanislaus. His love for God, his search of the Lord’s will, his
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