Charity as the Basis and Source of the Spirituality of the Religious Life 87 Kaspar Drużbicki, who provides allegoric interpretations for the individual parts of Jesus’ body in order to describe Christ, the Bridegroom of the human soul.175 The concept gladly used by the Marian Founder to describe the mystery of union between God and man is the idea of “friendship with God.” This concept, which does not appear in other documents of the early tradition of the Marians, with the exception for a reference to the religious person as a “special friend of Jesus” in the Rule of the Ten Virtues,176 is characteristic of Papczyński and very coherent. Basically, it is the result of a consequently developed idea of the religious life, which he understood as a school of evangelical perfection, the essence of which is the imitation of Christ by His disciples. In this way, the idea of “friendship with God” acquires decidedly Christo-centric features. The attitudes of the Apostles and Christ’s calling them “friends”, is something that Papczyński easily applies to the religious. Although friendship properly belongs to those disciples of Christ who significantly advanced in imitating Him and becoming like Him, yet all religious are called to it. Christ and His manner of relating to man are the source of true friendship. Indeed, it is Christ who bestows on His disciple the grace of friendship. Papczyński clearly speaks of it in the commentary on the sentence from the description of the conversion of St. Paul (Acts 9:4): “ ‘Why do you persecute me?’ Through grace, I made you my friend.”177 In the mind of the Marian Founder, Christ’s gift to man of a “true and lasting friendship” is a sign of redemptive love, linked to the remission of the penalty incurred on account of the debt, “your entire debt,” and to the forgiveness of all sins.178 In this way, God the 175 Cf. M. Hanusiewicz, Święte i zmysłowe w poezji religijnej polskiego baroku, Lublin 1998, pp. 244-270; cf. Also J. M. Popławski, Kaspra Drużbickiego teologia krzyża, Lublin 1997, pp. 103-119. 176 The Rule, p. 61. 177 IC, Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, BHC, pt. 1. 178 Here is a longer excerpt from this characteristic meditation: “Behold, my soul, what a great grace your Lord has granted to you! It was not enough for his goodness to forgive the punishment ascribed to you because of your debt, but he also forgave your entire debt. This means nothing else but giving complete amnesty for all your offenses and admitting you to his true and constant [f.88v] friendship. This is not
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