11 PREFACE In modern times, problems of the consecrated life, especially those concerned with spiritual theology, become of greater importance. This way of life – a fuller realization of the baptismal consecration – is a sign of the Church as a community of believers. In his post-Synodal exhortation Vita consecrata, dedicated to the consecrated life and its mission in the Church, St. Pope John Paul II expressed a wish for the entire Church – and consecrated persons in particular – to reflect on the religious vocation and to respond with their lives to the continuously emerging new challenges. At the same time, St. John Paul II reaffirmed that the consecrated life was at the “very heart of the Church.” This lifestyle matches the essence of the Christian calling “and the striving of the whole Church as Bride towards union with her one Spouse” (VC, 3). John Paul II also indicated a need “for fidelity to the founding charism and subsequent spiritual heritage of each Institute” (VC, 36). The study of the spirituality of the individual religious families demonstrates the wealth of the Church as a charismatic community, enriched with various gifts of the Holy Spirit. Among those who enriched the 17th-century Church with a new form of the religious life in Poland, Saint Stanislaus Papczyński († 1701) – the Founder of the first native (Polish) religious congregation – stands out as a prominent person. It is fortunate that the task of researching the problem of the spirituality of the religious life according to S. Papczyński and the early tradition of the Congregation of Marian Fathers was undertaken also by a Marian, Fr. Andrzej Pakuła. From the relative wealth of the source materials, he extracted the fundamentals of this community’s spirituality of the religious life. According to the Author’s conclusions, the concept of the spirituality of the religious life, defined by Saint Stanislaus Papczyński and the early Marian tradition, is based upon sound Christian spirituality and possesses individual, specific features. The religious rules in particular, that is S. Papczyński’s Norma
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