Chapter 3 89 view of the increasing difficulties in the Congregation he had founded, he wrote a letter to the Superior General of the Piarists, asking for help in discerning whether it was really God’s will for him to persevere on the way chosen on the day of the Oblatio.95 The Paschal way of passing from possessing to offering everything to God and Mary reached one culmination when at the end of his life Father Stanislaus accepted being deprived even of his beloved Norma Vitae (Rule of Life), which had become in some way a symbol of his entire life after the Oblatio. In fact, when the Marian Order finally received papal approval in 1699, it was not based on the Rule of Life or Constitutions of the Founder but on the Rule of Ten Evangelical Virtues of the BVM obtained from the Franciscans Reformats (OFM) in Rome and brought by Fr. Joachim Kozłowski of St. Anna. The Marians accepted and promulgated it very quickly at the General Chapter on April 14, 1701. Father Kozłowski, although chosen and promoted by Father Papczyński himself — when only a subdeacon he accompanied him on the trip to Rome in 1690–1691 to get papal approval for the Marian Order and later became his coadjutor and successor after being elected by the Chapter — did not follow his example. After the death of Father Papczyński, Kozłowski attempted to deprive him also of his proper title of “Father and Founder” of the Congregation by illegally assigning it to himself.96 Even today, some members of the Marian Congregation are still doubtful and reluctant to accept and acknowledge St. Stanislaus Papczyński’s undeniable fatherhood of the Marians. These doubts and reluctance, often resulting from culpable or excusable ignorance, need to be overcome. Therefore, it is important to know the person and work of the Father Founder on a deeper level in order to discover the abundance of the Holy Spirit’s grace which was bestowed upon him that he might 95 “The goal of this, my letter, is the following: that Your Fatherly Reverence, for my interior tranquility, stability, and salvation of my soul, having read (which I humbly ask you to do) this booklet of our Norma Vitae, would deign, as soon as possible, to clearly present to me your conviction, opinion, and will. Should I, as I swore, remain in this canonical status until the end of my life, as I belong to this [Congregation] now through this profession of mine (having already been released externally from the Institute of Pious Schools on the authority of the papal brief and having attained external release from the oath, etc.), for the glory of God, for the honor of the Virgin conceived without sin, for aiding the deceased deprived of the help of prayers and reparatory acts, or should I return to my first Institute of the Mother of God, which I particularly cherished, and which I [still] love and honor. What do some of our members of the Institute of Pious Schools advise me [to do]?” Saint Stanislaus Papczyński, Letter to Fr. Alexander Armini, SP, Superior General of the Order of Pious Schools, of March 23, 1688, No. 7, in Papczyński, Selected Writings, p. 917–918. 96 Cf. Kosmowski, Marianie 1671–1788, p. 119.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjI2Mw==