Spirituality of the Religious Life According to St. Stanislaus Papczyński 78 in which the reality of God and His love become so dominant in human life that it produces resignation or “renunciation,” “surrender,” “reconciliation,” “submission,” and “dedication” of everything as a result of choosing God and submitting to His will. As Papczyński remarks, this is the reason for which the virtue of resignation is linked to conformitas145or conforming the human will to the will of God, and with abnegatio or the biblical concept of resignation and self-abnegation (cf. Mt 16:24).146 Papczyński derives resignation from Christ’s attitude. It applies mostly to those moments described in the Gospel that reveal His “resignation” from His own will for love of the Father and salvation of men, associated with total entrustment to the Father. Papczyński recalls the events in the Garden of Olives to state that “But when an angel appeared to him [to Christ – note of the translator], fortifying him, and declared [to him] the will of his eternal Father (although it was not unknown to him as God), with the greatest resignation (maxima cum resignatione) he exclaimed: ‘Not as I will, but as you will.’”147 The Marian Founder finds traits of the same virtue in the attitude of Isaac who “The other, being led out by his father to Mount Moriah, offered himself as a victim to be slain in sacrifice, in order to be obedient both to God and to his father,” which was to presage the same submission of Jesus on another mount, namely Golgotha.148 Therefore, the virtue of resignation is a sort of an 145 The conditions between resignatio and conformatio can best be seen in Papczyński’s reflection of the mystery of the Incarnation, especially in its original language: “Considera apertam, et regalem viam ad nos Deo patere, per voluntatis nostrae cum illius voluntate conformationem: neque enim, hac absque Filius Dei uterum Virginis intemeratae ingressus fuisset. Quod si ad humanum pectus aditum aperuit conformatio resignatioque Deo, et effecit ut homo fieret; eadem illi ad tuum cor viam paratura, et datura est. Ita est, Pater aeterne, nullum donum caeleste, nulla gratia, nulla fere virtus intrare in animammeampoterit nisi fuero resignatus. Subicio itaque omnes meos sensus tibi, dedo cor; guberna illa, ut per veram resignationem verum, et liberummentis assequar dominium. Paratum tibi cor meum: Fiat voluntas tua: Ecce ego servus tuus, quid me vis facere?” IC, critical edition, p. 14. 146 Cf. IC, Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, AHC, p. 3. 147 IC, cf. Daily Meditations, Monday Morning. 148 IC, Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, AHC, pt. 1. It is worth noting that in his Protestatio Roman abeuntis written at the time of the Piarist disputes, Papczyński attributes to himself the attitude of resignation as a sign of
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