Spirituality of the Religious Life According to St. Stanislaus Papczyński 146 on the religious life indicate the Holy Spirit as the source of all gifts and charisms. Although certain similarities may be also found in other writings of the period, yet – due to their nature – they are devoid of personal witness and devote much less attention to the discussed issue. Saint Stanislaus evokes the person of the Holy Spirit most when he speaks about the origin of the Congregation of Marian Fathers. Describing in his Fundatio Domus Recollectionis the beginnings of the new religious community, he emphasizes that the idea was not his, but that it came from the Holy Spirit. Explaining the reasons for refusing a few proposals of lucrative benefices, he stated that “the divine vision imprinted” in his soul “in respect to the founding of the Congregation of the Immaculate Conception of the B. V. M.” demanded the fulfillment of this goal and therefore, his finding solutions to bring it about. He adds in the same document as if an interpretation of his previous statement that “for nearly two years […] I was searching for the ways to begin the Society of Immaculate Conception already formed in my mind by the Divine Spirit (formata in animo meo a Divino Spiritu Societas Immaculatae Conceptionis).88 Papczyński was firmly convinced that the Holy Spirit entrusted him with a special mission, the goal of which was to raise a religious community into existence dedicated to spreading devotion to the Immaculate Conception. He first expressed this conviction on December 11, 1670, as he accepted the indult of departure from the Piarist Fathers and made his act of oblation, in which he declared his intention to found a new community. At that time, he did not mention any “Divine vision” or special act of the Holy Spirit in his soul. They appeared some years later, around 1675.89 Importantly, while referring to his personal experience of faith which can be called mystical, he did not focus on the form of the religious institute to be founded – as he believed – after the Divine decree. He dedicated far greater attention, at least during the first years of his founding activity, to the 88 FDR, p. 65. Cf. W. Makoś, O. Stanisław od Jezusa Maryi..., pp. 278, 288-294. 89 This date is given by C. Krzyżanowski, MIC, as the probable time of Papczyński’s writing the document entitled Fundatio Domus Recollectionis. Cf. Positio, p. 350.
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