214 Every year brought new brethren with whom we’ve established good contacts, had many nice communal meetings, and did various works. For all this, I want to give you my thanks. One of the confreres who recently went back, gave this witness: “At last, I lived in a normal community.” It’s impossible to judge a community based only on the communal prayers, which are necessary, but not the only [functions]. We also look at our life, our problems, and our mutual relations. What good does it do to anyone, if a person attends all the prayers all the time, but is impossible to talk to afterwards? I do not negate the need for prayer. But there also is another side to it. What is the fruit of prayers in our life? Going back to Fr. Papczyński, I want to add that in the past two years I had many opportunities to talk about his work, especially with Fr. Andrzej Pakuła, MIC, who was preparing his Doctoral thesis. I used to stop by his place frequently and he would share with me his thoughts and would read large fragments of his work. This enriched me a lot; we had interesting conversations about our Founder. Basileu dos Anjos Pires, MIC Portugal, Balsamão, Vicariate Superior Perhaps, it’s a little early to talk about fruits, but I can say for the Portuguese Vicariate that thanks to the good program of preparations and the materials for the Year of Thanksgiving provided by the General Curia in our mother tongue (for which we are very grateful), the beatifi cation urged us all to refl ect on the person of our Founder. We had the opportunity to get to know him better and to give him greater respect and honor, something that hasn’t been done before. Father Papczyński has become a living person, close to us. The beatifi cation has awakened our gratitude and enthusiasm which fl ows from our vocation. We believe that with the beatifi cation, our founding charism regained vitality and clarity, and maybe even something new. The three components of the founding charism: the Immaculate Conception, the Poor Souls in Purgatory, and the apostolate among the poorest, have come closer together through the charismatic person of our Founder, which allowed for them to be better understood. To illustrate: we realized that from his early youth until the end, the life of Blessed Stanislaus was marked by suffering. This suffering was always illuminated by his faith in Jesus Christ Crucifi ed and Risen. Father Papczyński’s mystical experience during the time of the founding of the Congregation was the vision of the suffering of the souls in purgatory. Indeed, we say that the Congregation of Marians has been founded to bring support to our brethren in purgatory. Having known suffering, Fr. Papczyński was sensitive to the suffering of others.
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