Spirituality of the Religious Life According to St. Stanislaus Papczyński 140 dimension also has a dynamic character reminiscent of a path, a passage from the basics marked by sin, flaw or imperfection to grace, virtue, and the adoption of Christ’s attitudes. An ascetic effort is always necessary. Papczyński offers frequent reminders to “consider the words of the Lord” that indicate the hallmarks of Christ’s follower (sequax). From this, he sometimes draws conclusions in his own way “…you can easily deduce whether you are following Christ, whether you ever carried his cross, and whether you have been denying yourself out of love of him. For leaving behind in the world all your resources, wealth, honors, neighbors, and friends is of little importance in striving for the height of perfection and sanctity, unless you also forsake in the Order, yourself and your will. Christ did not save the world just because, leaving heaven he descended to earth and assumed human shape, but because he suffered while doing the will of the Father.”74 Therefore, only the authenticity of a conversion, undertaken not as a one-time effort but a continuous process of becoming like Christ, “the Holy of Holies,” can verify if the sequela Christi was true. A religious vocation thus takes on more than just the dimension of personal relationships – the first and most important of which is the relationship to Christ. It also results in a sort of realignment of the spiritual life in which sin – and all sin-related matters – is recognized as a nonChrist reality, lacking His presence, His grace and power. The radical rejection of sin is irrevocable and the primary condition for following Christ. On the other hand, the contrast – extreme at times – between what is worldly or secular and what is evangelical and religious is meant to lead to the discovery of what is supernatural, Divine, of Christ. One of his meditations in Inspectio cordis says: “Neither shall you find Him in idle chats, in curious reading, in the world, on the streets, in thoughts foreign to your manner of life, or in the conversation of worldly people.”75 Further in the book, he concludes: “Consider that for those who are to follow Christ, the greatest impediments are 74 IC, Meditation III, pt. 3. 75 IC, Sunday within the Octave of Epiphany, BHC, pt. 2; also see Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, BHC, pt. 2; cf. C.J. Krzyżanowski, Stanislaus a Jesu Maria..., p. 170.
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