Your fruit will remain

9 INTRODUCTION Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; For His loving kindness is everlasting Ps 118: 1 Dear Marians, never in the over three hundred year history of your Congrega- tion, has the necessity to reconsider the life and charism of your Founder been more burning. (…) Rejoicing in the gift of this Beatification, choose again the path on which the Gospel calls you and which your Founder showed to you. (Cardinal Franc Rodé, Prefect of the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life, during a Thanksgiving Mass for the Gift of the Beatification in Góra Kalwaria, on September 17, 2007). The great event of the Beatification of our Father Founder, Blessed Stanislaus Papczyński, marked by the Lord’s kindness and mercy, is still vivid in our memo- ries. Our Father Founder was presented as an example to be followed by all Chris- tians and the Church. Attention was focused on the charism of our Congregation. The year of preparations for the Beatification was also very successful. The pro- gram developed by the General Beatification Commission, carried out in our com- munities, apart from the other fruits which it bore, has helped us to rediscover the rich path of our Founder’s faith, and motivated us to reflect on the meaning and relevance of our charism. It may be the case, that the Marian community world- wide has never felt so united, in experiencing God’s love, and desiring to offer as much of ourselves as possible to respond to this love, through a more radical living of the Gospel and the Founder’s spirit. Aware of the greatness of the offered gift, we want to thank God since, “ every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights” (James 1, 17). We also want to make every effort, to recognize the mean- ing of this gift, and to reinforce the Marian vocation, the beginning of which starts in the life and work of the Blessed. To this end, as of January 1, 2008, we are starting a Year of Thanksgiv- ing to the Triune God, for the gift of the Beatification of Father Stanislaus Papczyński. May it also be a time of thanksgiving for calling our Congrega- tion into being and of personal adoration of God for the gift of the vocation to the Religious Life of each one of us. I trust that in this way, the entire Congre- gation will raise its spirits to meet the new challenges that Divine Providence sets before us today.