224 for prayer—who wouldn’t cry out in horror that a disobedient and prayer-neglecting religious shall perish?”2 Father Papczyński’s reprimand is very timely. When he was interviewed by the Italian agency “Ansa” at the beginning of this year (2008), Franc Cardinal Rodé, the Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, stated with concern that the consequences of secularization had became all too visible in the religious orders: “The lifestyle of some consecrated persons is exceedingly casual; they want to be free without limits; they are reluctant to wear habits; a progressive devaluation of prayer is noticed, a defi cient communal life and unsatisfactory obedience.” “There is no religious life without religious life,” as one of our confreres—a professor of Canon Law—likes to say. This sentence seems to be a pure syllogism yet, in fact, it is a succinct diagnosis of the religious life today, a warning and an admonition. Father Stanislaus talked about taking the religious life seriously and gave us a warning: “Take heed that it would not appear as if you imitate Jesus only because you wear the religious garb, while in fact, through your sordid customs, you present yourself worse than any layman. The state of a religious person is not salvation in itself, but living out the religious life is. (…) May God protect you from being a religious only by name, not by truth.”3 We must take to heart Fr. Founder’s appeals and admonitions. We frequently quote and take literally some of them; the others—we interpret in the context of the circumstances; yet some others are either not very popular or are regarded as obsolete, like, for example, this one: “For the secret love of God, this drink is foreign to our Congregation.”4 “To honor our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, suffering from thirst on the cross, drinking hard liquor, both outside and inside the [religious] house is forbidden on pain of losing God’s blessing, as it has been, in fact, thus far observed by all our [members] devoted to piety and sobriety.”5 The fi nal statement was made by a Marian who edited the protocol then. Indeed, could we sign under this declaration today? The fall of the Christian (religious) life in general has been noted and, consequently, the fall of the religious orders’ life, as well. We all feel the drastic decrease in vocations! Who knows if, in our case, this is not a result of “losing God’s blessing” because of not living by Fr. Papczyński’s spirit in this aspect, aside from other generally felt factors? I believe that daily spiritual refl ection, lasting half an hour and best conducted communally, is the vital element of the religious life. Of course, this also may be omitted! “Wise is the man who grew to know people. But far wiser is 2 IC, p. 769. 3 Ibid., p. 629. 4 T II, 15. 5 Bł. Stanisław Papczyński, Praecepta, 5, in: same author, Pisma zebrane, p. 1507.
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