Spirituality of the Religious Life According to St. Stanislaus Papczyński 116 will and to conform to it. This is the most well-traveled way to Heaven, followed by all the Saints, Patriarchs, and religious. […] In accordance with eternal wisdom, always say of all actions or plans: ‘“Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven’ (Mt 6:10). As for me, O Lord, may Your will be done with me in every moment, hour, day, and in eternity.”18 The Marian Founder believes that God the Father is always close to men and helpful in all needs, while His love is forgiving and tender, especially toward the lost and the weak. Sometimes it feels as if the imagery of Inspectio cordis radiates warmth, great cordiality, and a sense of fatherly closeness and concern. One can notice some typically human experiences of early childhood and the relationships between father and child, perhaps even Papczyński’s personal experiences. In one meditation, he writes: “This is what God, our Father, usually does to us. He carries and holds us in His hands, He leads and supports us; but then He leaves and abandons us at an unexpected moment so that we learn to run on our own. He does so as a father or a nurse would do with a little child, teaching him to take steps: first leading him by his right hand, then handing him a little staff to lean on, and eventually taking it back and telling him to walk without any guide or support.”19 We may rightly assume that the goal of such a depiction of God’s fatherly goodness is the author’s desire to encourage our turning in trust to our heavenly Father whose salvific goodness is greater than any earthly love. In the Marian Founder’s opinion, the generally understood goal of the religious life is oriented toward God the Father and strives to “give glory to the Father” (glorificare Patrem). Recalling in Inspectio cordis a sentence from the Gospel of St. Matthew (5:16), Papczyński recalls that the religious – as the disciple of 18 IC, Sunday within the Octave of Epiphany, AHC, pt. 2. In his writings on the religious life, the issue of God’s will is not systematically presented; therefore it is a complex concept, covering not only the basic dimensions of the Christian life, but also the specific elements of the spirituality of the religious life, such as the vows. In his Templum Dei Mysticum, Papczyński states that for a Christian (implicitly a secular), God’s will is revealed mainly through the commandments and the “inner voice of God speaking in one’s conscience.” Cf. Por. T. Rogalewski, Koncepcja życia chrześcijańskiego..., pp. 34-39. 19 IC, Sunday within the Octave of the Nativity, AHC, pt. 3.
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