39 your life for His sake and your neighbor’s. This is what He asks of you when He says: “See that you make them according to the pattern shown you on the mountain” (Ex 25:40). On what mountain?—On Golgotha. What has been shown?— Christ, the Son of God, crucifi ed for your sake and the sake of the entire human race.”12 T he Sequela Christi according to Blessed George Matulaits-Matulewicz Blessed George’s lifetime passion was the spreading of the Kingdom of God, which arose from his deep union with Christ. For this reason, he gave his confreres a two-fold goal: striving for holiness and evangelization. The way to holiness is the imitation of Christ, in which one has to discover in oneself the living image of the whole Christ. Since the goal of Christ’s life on earth was to introduce the Kingdom of God, thus it has to become the goal of the life of a Religious united with Christ. In the Guiding Idea, Blessed George thus writes about imitating Christ: “May they strive for perfection by imitating our Lord, Jesus Christ who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. May they contemplate His private and secret life and the public and apostolic one, as well as His life dedicated to prayer and work, reward, and sacrifi ce. May they make efforts not only to obtain some of Christ’s virtues, but rather to get to know Him better, to be imbued with His spirit, to conform their will to His and their lives to His so that they may discover within themselves a living image of Christ.”13 An entry made on October 15, 1910, in his Journal perfectly refl ects the evangelical goal of following Christ: “Therefore, if I really want to follow in the footsteps of the saints, I too must make the goal of Christ’s life my own. And the instruments and means that He used must become mine as well. What did Jesus want most of all?—To bring the Kingdom of God into this world, i.e., our holy Church. What way did He follow to achieve this? The way of complete self-sacrifi ce—of hard work, humiliation, hardship, persecution, and suffering. He followed this road up to the point of laying down His life, of being nailed to a cross. What follows, then?—That each of us must freely and with complete self-denial devote and consecrate himself entirely to the Church.”14 The above fragment of the Journal brings us also to the passion aspect of both following Christ and of evangelization. The mystery of the cross was present in the life of Blessed George very strongly and in various ways. Father Mat12 IC, p. 922 (footnote is given after the Polish source). 13 General Idea, 11. 14 George Matulaitis-Matulewicz, Journal, p. 32, Stockbridge, 2003.
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