Introduction 19 For the above reasons, the undertaking of the topic Spirituality of the Religious Life according to Stanislaus Papczyński and the Early Tradition of the Congregation of Marian Fathers is not merely justifiable but also necessary. The main goal of this work is to interpret the Marians’ source documents and to extract the fundamentals of the spirituality of the religious life. While clearly the subject of this study fits into the broad understanding of Christian spirituality2, it has its individual form consistent with the state of life in the Church. This state’s distinctive elements flowing from the nature of the religious life – proper to all institutes (such as the consecration of the person, religious vows, the communal life, public witness to Christ and the Church, and separation from the world3) – are imbued with the spirit of the Founder and other factors, highly relevant to the rise of the community. What elements of the spirituality of the religious life are essential and specific to Saint Stanislaus Papczyński and the early Marian tradition? What are their basic traits and what has been particularly emphasized? In what way have the basics of the spiritual life such as prayer, sacraments, and asceticism been interpreted? Is it viable to speak of an original approach to spirituality? Those are the main questions which the present work shall attempt to answer. polskiej mistyki (1914-1939), Warszawa, 1999, p. 9; J. Misiurek, Polska Szkoła Duchowości, in: Leksykon duchowości katolickiej, Ed. M. Chmielewski, Lublin, Kraków, 2002, p. 488; same author, Mariańska Szkoła Duchowości, in: Leksykon duchowości katolickiej, p. 488. 2 At this opportunity, let us provide its definition given by the [Polish] Catholic Encyclopedia: “Christian Spirituality is a form of the spiritual life of a faithful striving towards unity with God through Jesus Christ; it is shaped and fulfilled in accordance with His teachings, example of life, and salvific work in Christianity. It embraces all manifestations of a Christian’s life that are part of the Christian ethos and which find their expression in religiosity, asceticism, and mysticism. Together with them, spirituality is a subject of study by a special branch of theology.” Cf. M. Daniluk, Duchowość chrześcijańska, EK, 4, col. 317. The issue of the unity of Christian spirituality understood in a different manner (as Christian holiness) in a broad (and highly useful for persons in charge of beatification processes) perspective is also discussed by I. Wierbiński in: Problemy i zadania współczesnej hagiologii, Toruń 2004, pp. 19-91. 3 Cf. M. Daniluk, Encyklopedia instytutów życia konsekrowanego i stowarzyszeń życia apostolskiego. Pojęcia, terminy, instytucje, dokumenty, czasopisma, Lublin 2000, pp. 100-101, 405.
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