Spirituality of the Religious Life According to St. Stanislaus Papczyński 160 immaculist attribute and its meaning.3 This way of thinking was also noticeable in the Marian Founder’s written works, including the Norma vitae – the most representative work concerning the newly-created community. There, in legislative form, Papczyński described the spreading of devotion to the Immaculate Conception as its basic goal. By the authority of the Church, this specific trait of spirituality will be enriched in time by the idea of imitating the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, expressed not only in various writings of the Marian Founder, but especially – expressis verbis – in the very title of the Regula decem beneplacitorum, accepted by the Marians in 1699 as the initial point of reference in their spiritual life. 1. Maternal presence of the Immaculate Virgin Before Stanislaus Papczyński founded for the first time in the history of Poland a male religious community with a Marian and an immaculist character, Polish spirituality promoted various mysteries of Mary’s life and offered many forms of Marian devotion. Examining the growth of devotion to the Mother of God in Poland, J. Wojnarowski, CSSR, concluded that there was a correlation between religious orders existing at that time in Poland 3 Stanislaus Papczyński gave a spectacular, although somewhat surprising testimony to that conviction shortly after departing from the Piarist Order and taking the first steps towards founding his “Society of the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception.” About half a year after leaving the Piarist Order, he started seriously considering going back to that Order and he addressed its superiors with a request (discussed by the Piarists’ General Chapter in Rome in 1671), in which he insisted, among other things, that the Congregation of Piarists sub nomine et titulo Immaculatae Conceptionis B.V.M. vocetur. It is worth noting the fact that the Piarist Order was an explicitly Marian community in terms of both its title (Order of Poor Clerics Regular of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools) and its spirituality. St. Joseph Calasanctius (also known as Calasanz) who titled himself St. Joseph of the Mother of God and called his Order “the work of Mary,” wrote in its Constitutions: “Let all the religious honor the Most Blessed Virgin Mary and her Most Holy Name with filial piety and special devotion,” while the Order’s coat of arms displays Mary’s name and the patronal feast falls on the day of Most Holy Name of the B.V.M. In this context, Papczyński’s attitude would indicate that the essential content of his spiritual experience to which he referred during his founding work, was connected not to the Marian character as such, but with its immaculist aspect. Cf. Positio, p. 329; M. Rolka, Kult maryjny w życiu i posłannictwie polskich pijarów do roku 1864, in: Niepokalana. Kult Matki Bożejna ziemiach polskich w XIX wieku, Ed. B. Pylak, Cz. Krakowiak, Lublin 1988, p. 359.
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