St Stan Illustrated Story

45 A t any rate, on July 22, 1656 – when the invader had been tempor- arily expelled fromWarsaw – Stanislaus made his religious pro- fession and shortly afterwards received his minor orders and sub-diaconate.W W ith the advent of August 1656, persecution was on the increase in reoccupied Warsaw. The spread of pestilence began to take on epi- demic proportions. Our young cleric, Stanislaus, along with his con- freres, fled the city. After a short period of rest at Podolinec, he made his way towards the end of September to the newly opened foundation of the Piarist Fathers at Rzeszow. But by February 1657, this city also was threatened by invading armies – in this case ‘Transylvanians’ (from what is now Romania) under Prince Rakoczy – and once again Stanislaus sought refuge at Podoliniec. Here, with the opening of the new school year, the young sub-dea- con was appointed instructor of rhetoric at the same college in which, only seven years before, he had been a student. In teaching and training his students, he made use of a textbook that he himself had written and to which he had given the title Queen of the Arts (Regina Artium). Part of this book was published in 1663 under the title Forerunner of the Queen of the Arts (Prodromus Regi- nae Artium). Ever an ardent lover of Our Immaculate Mother, the Saint dedi- cated his first published work to Mary: “To the Mother of the Eternal Word, to the Devoutly Eloquent Virgin Mary Conceived without stain – Stanislaus, vowed to poverty, dedicates this Forerunner of the Queen of the Arts”. The dedication ends with the petition: “Teach us, O Purest Mother of Wisdom, both how to live well and how to speak well.” This twofold purpose – to form at once a good Catholic and Pole and a good speaker – was always in his mind, particularly when it came to the choice of exercises or examples. It is characteristic of the Saint that one of the latter was a verse composed by himself in honor of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.