Spirituality of the Religious Life According to St. Stanislaus Papczyński 154 lead them to discerning and accepting the salvific truth,112 and eventually embarking on the path of imitating “the life of Christ, and especially his most holy Passion.”113 In God’s salvific plan, the Holy Spirit is to be a lasting gift imparted to men and – thanks to this – the foundation of true faith, hope, and love. Papczyński tells us that in the person’s fulfilling of a religious vocation, it may happen that he would possess and live by the Holy Spirit, but that others would either not realize it or prove incapable of the proper discernment and evaluation of the fact. In his opinion, this is what happened in the life of St. John the Baptist who was led by the Holy Spirit, although other people “thought that he did all the things which they saw from the outside by his own human powers and not by the power of the Holy Spirit. They did not know that the Holy Spirit was dwelling in the saint’s heart, instructing and directing him.”114 Therefore, there is a need for criteria of the presence and working of the Holy Spirit, because they can help a religious not only praise God properly, but above all to knowingly cooperate with Him in the work of salvation. In presenting criteria, Papczyński uses in part relevant biblical passages; but he also establishes some criteria on the basis of his own spiritual life, especially in regard to the concept of the spirituality of the religious life and some of its essential elements such as supernatural love, the imitation of Christ, truth, and the practice of the theological and moral virtues, especially the virtue of obedience. 112 In this context, it is worthy is the meditation about the Spirit of Truth (Jn 15:26) from Inspectio cordis: “If you want to recognize whether someone has, or whether you have, the Spirit of the Lord, consider whether he is a lover of truth and also whether you attend to the truth. For concealing the truth is characteristic of a diabolical mind, and not admitting the truth is proper to the evil one. He who neither tells the truth to others nor allows it to be said to them is not of God; nor is the one who neither hears the words of God, which are the truth, nor proclaims them to another. On the other hand, if you welcome as precious the rebukes made to you, you have the Spirit of God. If you acknowledge the faults of your past life, and your present defects, if you atone for them and correct them, you have the Spirit of God. If you also bring others to recognize their evil deeds, repent for them, feel disgust for them, and correct and atone for them, you have the Spirit of God. Every desire for virtue, and every disapproval of vice is proper to the Spirit of God, because these are the best things. In truth, every good gift comes from the Father of lights (cf. Jas 1:17), IC, Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension, BHC, pt. 3. 113 IC, Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension, AHC, pt. 1. 114 IC, Third Sunday of Advent, AHC, pt. 2.
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