St Stan Illustrated Story

50 B oth his natural talents and his acquired proficiency certainly had much to do with this public recognition, but it was due even more to his own deep spirituality, the maturity of his interior life, and his resolute striving for priestly and religious perfection. One can hardly be expected to impart to another what one does not possess oneself. As the old Latin proverb says, Nemo dat quod non habet! Father Stanislaus was well aware of this, and to ensure the fruitfulness of his apostolate both within the classroom and outside it, he saw to it that his own prayer life did not suffer, that he had sufficient time for personal study, and that he took his full share in the community life of the Congregation. He had been trained in the rugged school of religious life outlined in the original Constitutions drawn up by the Founder of the Piarist Fathers, St. Joseph Calasantius. He had come to love these constitutions deeply, and to live his life in accordance with them. He, therefore, opposed the growing tendency to mitigate them, in any way whatever. He had always tried to remain faithful to the ideal of ‘utter poverty,” and he was a coura- geous and zealous advocate of strict religious discipline. He strenuously defended the rules and regulations as he understood them, believing that the good of the Polish Province of the Piarist Fathers, then (in 1662) newly established, depended upon their observance.