Spirituality of the Religious Life According to St. Stanislaus Papczyński 62 treasure of heaven.”105 According to Saint Stanislaus Papczyński, this point of view corresponds to the importance of the goal, to which a religious is called and which he strives to achieve through the process of purification discussed here. Seeing that the “carnal and spiritual loves” cannot reign simultaneously in one heart, there is a need for “total self-denial” combined with the repudiation of self-love and one’s own will so that it becomes conformed to the will of God and God’s love becomes the only guiding principle for every action of the religious. Papczyński particularly brings this to mind in Norma vitae.106 In general, it is not just about making an effort at the purgative stage to fight sin and its consequences or the “triple enemy,” instead, to take the path of a gospel way of life, which leads to supernatural, perfect love, of which the true example was given by Christ and the saints, and among them in particular, the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, Immaculately Conceived. Following this train of thought, the Marian Founder points out the need to fight all that which is not in itself a sin or its consequence, but is only natural, devoid of the supernatural dimension of faith and love. The purgative path leads to such a “rebirth” that man is capable of fully living out the reality of holy baptism and allowing the Holy Spirit to guide him. The author of Inspectio cordis is of the opinion that “Because he wanted them to live not only by the law of nature, but also according to the law of grace, to which they can submit themselves only through faith and Baptism.”107 Also, the path of purification will help repudiate one’s own ideas 105 IC, For the Feast of St. Anne, Grandmother of Jesus Christ, BHC, pt. 3. However, if we consider this passage in its original Latin, then the radicalism of Saint Stanislaus becomes even clearer and it is seen in the play on words and contrasts: “Exuendus ergo tibi proprius amor, si Divino vis inflammari; abicienda propria voluntas, si divinae vis conformis esse; denique totam te abneges necesse est, si totum possidere cupis Christum, inaestimabilem caeli thesaurum.” The Polish translation of Inspectio cordis unfortunately somewhat weakened the expressiveness of the quoted excerpt, in which the essential role belongs to: 1. the allusion to the evangelical “must deny himself ” [abnegatio, abnegare] (Mt 16:24), and 2. the contrast between totam te abneges necesse est [you must deny yourself totally] and si totum possidere cupis Christum [if you desire to possess the whole Christ] (critical edition of IC, p. 299). 106 NV II, 1-5. 107 IC, For the Feast of the Finding of the Holy Cross, AHC, pt. 1.
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