Theological Foundations new file

192 Theological Foundations should pay some attention to his emphasis on the great effectiveness of prayer in the Christian life. Whoever relies on it and practices it, will, in Father Stanislaus’s opinion, erase all his sins, even the gravest ones, and obtain God’s favor to such a degree that he will become His friend and son. A man united with God through prayer will be able to accomplish anything in God, with Him and through Him. 61 Father Papczynski claims that the best way to help the Church is through ardent prayer: “Souls dedicated to prayer can in one instant help the Church more than all the preachers by their sermons, the scholars by their lectures and con- fessors by administering the Sacrament of Penance. They can awaken the dead to life, bring the evil ones back to the path of righteousness, they can annihilate entire armies, avert the threat of hunger or pestilence, and do it all with two hands raised in prayer and supported by faith and love (...). Therefore, it is my most earnest advice to you, O Christian, to ask some wise and pious man’s recommendation and choose several approved prayers which you will never stop reciting. You should also assume the habit of pious meditation on the Lord’s Passion, on the four ultimate affairs of man, on the lives of Jesus Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints in heaven, so that by these pious practices you might be purified, enlightened and become more like those in communion with whom you want to be after death.” 62 As a priest, Father Papczynski knew that many of the dying went to God’s judgment unprepared. That is why he wanted to assist them through prayer in the effectiveness of which he believed so strongly. 63 In order to encourage his confreres to prayer, he ordered them in his rule that they should pray ardently and piously for the souls suffering in Purgatory, especially for soldiers killed in battle and for those who died because of pestilence. 64 This regulation was already included in the first visitation document of the Marian hermitage in the Korabiew Forest in which the bishop ordered, probably upon Father Stanislaus’s suggestion, that an office for the dead should be recited daily. 65 As he ordered his confreres to pray for all the deceased, Father Papczynski made this one of the main tasks of the congregation. This