5 Jan Mikołaj Rokosz, MIC Superior General The Goal of the General Convention and the Paths Towards Its Realization Introduction to the Proceedings We have placed great hopes in the beatifi cation of our Founder. Perhaps, some had even counted on the fact that it would automatically resolve all of the Congregation’s problems, overcome the crisis, bring an instantaneous growth to our community, and most of all—contribute to an increase in vocations. But it has not come to pass. Instead, we have become more and more convinced that God, through the beatifi cation of our Founder, wishes to draw our attention to something that concerns the essence of our vocation in the Church. Our discerning and accepting this gift may change the image of our Congregation. “Dear Marians, never in the over three hundred year history of your Congregation, has the necessity to reconsider the life and charism of your Founder been more burning. (…) Rejoicing in the gift of the beatifi cation, choose once again the path on which the Gospel calls you and which your Founder showed to you.” I open this General Convention with those words, which Franc Cardinal Rodé, the Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life, addressed to the Marians at the tomb of our Founder on the day after his beatifi cation. The topic of this Convention is “Father Stanislaus Papczyński—Father and Guide of the Marian Vocation.” It seems that those words have a prophetic inspiration for us. During this convention, we would like to take a fresh look at the life and the charism of our Founder and their timeliness for the modern world. Then, we shall seek to answer the question: how faithful are we to our Founder’s legacy? This applies both to our present legislation (Constitutions and Directory) and to the quality and forms of our life and apostolate. Later, we shall refl ect on what needs to be done so that our founding charism may enkindle a new strength within us. Therefore, the task of this convention is to discern this particular kairos for our Congregation—our Founder’s beatifi cation—and to formulate concrete proposals for our response to it.
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