The Immaculist Character of Spirituality 183 perfection of a religious in the first place, but to his discovery of God’s greatness, love, goodness, closeness to man, as well as to encourage repentance leading to the holiness revealed in Christ, His Mother Mary, and the other saints. In the mind of all his biographers, starting with Leporini and those that follow, Saint Stanislaus was united with the Immaculately Conceived Mother of Our Lord from the beginning of his life and strove to imitate the example of her life in everything. Describing the life of the Marian Founder in his biography, Leporini pays greater attention to his filial bond with the Mother of God, while Wyszyński, who repeats Vita Fundatoris in great measure, emphasizes the aspect of imitating her. Keeping to this convention, the biography frequently gives and interprets the facts of Papczyński’s life according to the model of the imitatio Mariae, which is most evident in the description of the Founder’s death, where the author states: “Since the Venerable Servant of God, Father Stanislaus of Jesus and Mary was a great venerator of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God throughout his life, and an ardent defender of her honor, Christ the Lord willed to bestow a double privilege upon the servant of His BelovedMother, namely: prior to his death, he made his profession of vows on the Rule of Imitating the Blessed Mother; he imitated her death by dying in a similar place. Like the Mother of God who died at the Cenacle in Jerusalem, he died at (the monastery of ) Our Lord’s Cenacle in New Jerusalem, having lived 70 years.”62 This “Marian” interpretation of the Founder’s life was later continued by other biographers until modern times.63 The Regula decem beneplacitorum, which the Congregation of Marian Fathers adopted in 1699 and which gave him legal Papal approval, has a markedly imitative Marian character. However, Papczyński’s biographers emphasize that 62 C. Wyszyński, op. cit., p. 129. 63 In the latest biography of St. Stanislaus by T. Rogalewski, MIC, we can notice a similar manner of presenting his person, where one of the most important manifestations of his spirituality is a close relationship with the Mother of God. Stating the matter briefly, Rogalewski claims: “One of the characteristic features of Fr. Papczyński’s spirituality is his ardent love for the Most Holy Mother Immaculately Conceived,” Lumen marianorum..., p. 424.
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