St Stan Illustrated Story

65 I n addition to his priestly obligations on behalf of the Lubocz com- munity entrusted to his care, Fr. Papczynski continued as far as he could the practice acquired during his life as a religious of spending a good part of each day in private prayer. Evidently it was no easy matter completely to avoid the frequently boisterous life of the court, echoes of which would reach him even in the house chapel. Consequently, he sought privacy elsewhere. Or was it that he feared that it would not be possible in the chapel to conceal from others the manifestations of pecu- liar graces with which God visited him during prayer? Whatever the reason, we have evidence of at least one witness that “ ... the Venerable Fr. Stanislaus would often secretly absent himself from the courtly gathering and make his way to the barns to pray, and he was frequently seen by those who were sent out in search of him (to summon him to meals) ... raised about a yard above the ground, and thus remaining for a long time in prayer.” F ather Stanislaus did not fail to impart to others the benefits that he himself had derived from his contact with God in contempla- tive prayer. Saint ThomasAquinas tells us that it is good, holy, and praise- worthy to dedicate one’s life wholly to God in contemplation, but he goes on to say that it is even better if one shares the fruits of this contemplation with others by means of an active apostolate (contemplata aliis tradere). During his stay at the court of James karski, Fr. Papczynski de- voted himself with the utmost zeal and energy to his pastoral and apos- tolic duties, and particularly to spreading devotion to the Mother of God. One instance of this was his introduction, among the members of the household and the local faithful, of the practice of singing the Rosary prayers in common. This devotion was kept up at the karski court long after the Saint had left; in fact, as we know from one of the witnesses at the process for his beatification, the custom survived there until the first half of the eighteenth century.