204 Dariusz Maewski, MIC Poland, Warsaw-Stegny, Provincial Secretary The fruit of Fr. Founder’s beatifi cation that I carry within myself comes from my refl ection on his entire life. I was sort of forced to do this refl ection, because I participated in the preparations for the mass media campaign, which meant that I had to demonstrate a good knowledge of the reliable facts about his life, which would encourage people to get to know the new Blessed. People who work in the mass media today are down to earth and they want to show the reality. Unverifi ed legends about levitations and calming storms or tales about a killed dog, often told by our Fr. Founder’s biographers, surely become a good vehicle for curiosity-enticing revelations; however, they bring the life story of our Founder down to the level of sensational materials published by the tabloid press seeking readers. It seemed important to extract from Fr. Papczyński’s biography such facts that would help to see the new Blessed as an advocate. To me personally, this important factor appeared in form of the path of faith followed by our Fr. Founder. Looking at my own experience of faith, I begin to realize that no one, not a single man, is born with faith, which means that there is no such receptor in the human mind that controls the development of faith, as it happens with our senses. This is why people begin to convert, begin to believe when, realizing the consequences of their sin, they say: NO! This is the only way for people to recover the proper relationship with God. When they become terrifi ed of themselves, of their vision of things which they call “their own good,” only then will they begin to seek the truth about themselves and about God. First, people must realize that they have lived in a world meant exclusively to serve their ambitions, comfort, and fears. I discovered this process in the story Fr. Founder’s life. It began with his perceiving the slavery resulting from living for himself, just as St. Paul said in his Second Letter to Timothy (3:1-5): “But understand this: there will be terrifying times in the last days. People will be self-centered and lovers of money, proud, haughty, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, irreligious, callous, implacable, slanderous, licentious, brutal, hating what is good, traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, as they make a pretense of religion but deny its power.” In his youth, Fr. Papczyński nurtured ambitions which were disproportionate to the means available for their realization and God turned them into an instrument for his conversion. The way of his return may be found in the words of a prayer published in its modern rendering in the book of the Marian prayers: “My God, my Father and my Guardian, be adored forever. Lead me by your hand along the paths of this world. You know, O Lord, that by myself, I am not able to accomplish anything that is good. May your Divine Providence guide me until
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